Chinese Science Fiction:

Abstract

The relation of science to science fiction in the history of Chinese science fiction has been closely linked to both the influence of Western science and to ideals of progress, nationalism, and empire. But when we turn to China’s long history of philosophical speculation, a rather different story needs to be told. This article examines the ways in which the indigenous Chinese sciences have fed into fiction, and considers the consequences for our understandings of the genre of science fiction itself and its broader social and historical contexts, as well as relationships between modernity, progress, and science in a non-Western, but globally crucial, context.