[Xiyuan Reading] China in 50 Years and the World in 400 Years

Preface

It's really been a long, long time since I last updated my blog and WeChat official accounts, especially this newly opened lifestyle account of mine. After posting the photos of watching fish that I took last year at the end of March, I still haven't published a new post since... Some friends said my tech account gets updated quite frequently but this one barely does, so I must be a tech nerd with no life. It's not that I have no life to share—actually every week I jot down lots of things I want to share on my todo list, but then... busy and lazy, I've just kept putting it off.

First Encounter

This article will introduce two books by the master Obsidian Holy Stone, The Distance of the Sun and Earth Invasion. Both books are actually fairly niche, and they don't get much attention online. Let me first talk about how I discovered this author and these two works~

A while ago I had some free time, and with the international situation in turmoil, I often went on communities like Zhihu to watch various big shots “keyboard-govern the country.” All kinds of well-reasoned, dead-serious analyses were frankly captivating, and I was totally hooked~ But after all that's just everyone's discussion and some visions of the future. What I was more interested in was seeing a complete picture of the future of China, Asia, and even the world. By chance I saw netizens mention a military sci-fi novel called The Distance of the Sun, known as “Crow's-Mouth Distance.” I downloaded it just for fun, and then embarked on a reading journey full of all kinds of shocked holy-shit moments...

As for Earth Invasion, as the sequel to The Distance of the Sun, I naturally continued reading it after finishing The Distance of the Sun~

To avoid too many spoilers, this article doesn't go into much plot; I'm simply writing down my own feelings, hoping to attract friends interested in this kind of subject matter to come read the books together

The Distance of the Sun

Economic crises originate from currency, and the crisis of existing currencies originates from the monopoly of energy. This is a campaign over new energy; this is a journey of embracing the sun. Perhaps we cannot see the successful ignition of nuclear fusion in our lifetime, but our passion will never cool.

Here are the so-called “crow's mouth” prophecies I came across:

This is a comment from 2015, and this novel was written in 2011

Another summary of prophecies that came true, updated in 2019:

Novel: China is the first to achieve a breakthrough in the commercialization of nuclear fusion Reality: Our country's nuclear fusion technology truly ranks at the very forefront of the world

Novel: Fusion fuel comes from helium-3 on the Moon Reality: Chang'e 2 soft-landed on the lunar surface; our country continuously strengthens its lunar exploration efforts

Novel: The Long March 5 heavy-lift rocket's progress is winding and encounters difficulties Reality: The Long March 5 rocket launch failed; it has indeed encountered difficulties at present

Novel: Palyugina becomes President of Russia Reality: Palyugina, daughter of Putin's mentor, runs for president; Putin says a woman can become president of Russia

Novel: China establishes the Asian Development Bank Reality: Our country established the AIIB, which now already has 100 member countries; the member countries account for 78% of the world's population and 63% of GDP

Novel: China dumps U.S. Treasury bonds Reality: Our country sold off 142.5 billion in U.S. Treasury bonds in March, April, and May of this year

Novel: China's infrastructure is the world's number one power. Reality: The infrastructure maniac is indeed so

Novel: The Russian female president refuses to sell Russian stealth fighters to India. She believes Indians would take Russia's proud creation and use it as a stepping stone for the Chinese Reality: Pakistan's JF-17 Xiaolong fighters beat India's imported Su-30s so badly they couldn't find north

Novel: The Saudi royal succession is confusing and uncertain Reality: The Saudi royal succession is about to become a wrangle

I'll add one more point:

The novel mentions that after “certain” things happened, China tightened control over hk and issued a series of new laws And in reality... last year's National Security Law, this year's patriots governing Hong Kong... accurate enough to be frightening

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A somewhat regrettable thing is that this novel, for certain reasons, was never written to completion; the ending was rushed through. It would have been even better if it were complete

This book really isn't easy to write a review for. Although it's sci-fi, it's too close to our present era...

Earth Invasion

Freeman Dyson classified civilizations into three types. When the universe, as if as a joke, connects a planet about to step into a Type II civilization with a planet that has just undergone the steam revolution, what kind of things will happen? This is the world four hundred years after The Distance of the Sun. Humanity once again stands at a fork in the road of development...

My love for sci-fi works began with Verne's trilogy, and after reading the complete works of Big Liu, I have always had great confidence in Chinese sci-fi. Likewise, this work did not disappoint me. The prosperous SCO Greater China region four hundred years later is something to yearn for, while the deep-rooted flaws of the Anglo-Saxons and of capitalism also extend, more than four hundred years later, onto the planet Assyria more than 6,000 light-years away...

Two civilizations meet and collide with extremely unequal levels of technology. The enormous gap makes one can't help but think: when we face a civilization lagging behind us with an overwhelming advantage, how many people can still keep their conscience and goodwill?

This work's perspective is very unique! We've seen plenty of alien invasions in sci-fi novels, especially Big Liu's The Three-Body Problem, whose influence is so great that we naturally place Earth humans in a weak position—every encounter in the cosmos is our Earth being coveted and invaded. But this Earth Invasion is the opposite: it tells the story of Earth as the invader, and what happens with the “humans” on an Earth-like planet... It feels a bit like that earlier movie called Avatar, though I don't remember the specific plot very well; the final ending should be different.

I originally thought that Earth and Assyria (the invaded alien world) would ultimately, because of humanity's awakening of conscience, have the world's number one power, the SCO, step in to end the sins of the Anglo-Saxons and come to a happy ending. I didn't expect that this balance would ultimately be broken from the outside. Truly, just as Ye Wenjie said in The Three-Body Problem I, people cannot lift themselves up by themselves...

Although the book portrays that most of human nature is originally evil, there are always some simple people whose conscience has not been extinguished who, in the trial of a new form of life, hold up the future of the species, allowing humanity to break free from the shackles of life and fly toward a more distant universe...

Conclusion

• The Distance of the Sun: The war descriptions are a real thrill to read. Because it's so close to the present era, the sense of immersion is strong. While reading I couldn't help the corners of my mouth turning up—“we too will have a day to hold our heads high!” (you could say it's a military-oriented power fantasy)
• Earth Invasion: In the distant future, the fates of two distant galaxies are already tightly bound together. Space wars, all kinds of mechs—you could say that's a man's romance! East-West confrontation, the confrontation of evil and good. When our strength is enough to stand above another kind of human, do we choose to save them, or to enslave and slaughter them?

In short, for those who love sci-fi, military affairs, and politics, I strongly recommend it. Of course, even just to kill time, it's worth a look~

References

• How would you evaluate the sci-fi novel Earth Invasion by Obsidian Holy Stone (previous work The Distance of the Sun)? https://www.zhihu.com/question/266068017
• How would you evaluate the military sci-fi web novel The Distance of the Sun and its “prophecies”? https://www.zhihu.com/question/29007466