Taoist Philosophy in Chinese Science Fiction: A Comparison between Zhuangzi and Broken Stars

Chinese science fiction has been attaining global visibility since Liu Cixin’s trilogy entitled Remembrance of Earth’s Past. The trilogy’s English translator Liu Yukun has edited and rendered a science-fiction anthology that comprises sixteen novellas composed by fourteen Chinese novelists. Apart from a fecundity of imagination and richness of imagery-evoking depictions, narratives compiled in the anthology also epitomise Taoist philosophy conveyed in Zhuangzi, a Warring States (475-221 BC) treatise ascribed to an illustrious philosopher Zhuangzi. Philosophical constructs in the anthology can be exemplified by quintessential construals such as ‘non-action’, ‘resting in destiny’ and ‘self-so’, as well as mindset appertaining to temporal and aesthetic issues.

Tourism as an Instrument of Rapprochement between the PRC and the Russian Federation

After the PRC President Xi Jinping put forward a proposal for the implementation of the Belt and Road initiative in 2013, this initiative of the PRC faced a phenomenon that has been called “soft power of resistance” in Chinese science. The PRC leadership, as a way to overcome this challenge, sees the need for humanitarian rapprochement with the participating countries of the initiative, one of the manifestations of which is Chinese outbound tourism. In Eurasia, the one of the most rapid development of Chinese tourism in recent years has been in Russia, which allows us to consider this phenomenon as an attempt from the PRC to cultural rapprochement with the Russian Federation through increasing tourist flows.

On Science and Civilisation in China

When the first volume of Science and Civilisation in China was published in 1954, Chinese scientific and technological accomplishments were largely unknown in the West, even among scientists. The initiator of the series, the British biochemist Joseph Needham, subsequently became one of the most important conduits between Chinese science and the international community.