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2023 World Science Fiction Convention is scheduled to happen in Chengdu, China - as I understand the first in-person Worldcon since the pandemic. The reason why it's in CW topic is because one of the guests of honor is Sergey Lukianenko, who, besides being a mid-grade SciFi writer (his early works are decent, his late stuff is IMO garbage), is an active supporter and propagandist for the Russian war in Ukraine, hating Ukraine so much that he prohibited translating his books into Ukrainian (I am sure Ukrainian-speaking culture is doomed now). If one needs somebody to embody a militant Ukraine hater, who denies the nation's right to exist, claims the whole national claim is fake, the language is broken Russian, Ukrainian government are Nazis, puppeteered by the West, the whole nine yards - he's the man.
Predictably, this did not sit well with everybody. Somebody, representing "Polish fandom", even started a petition to rescind the invitation. However, given as it is unlikely the Chinese organizers didn't know who Lukianenko is and what his views - which he is actively and loudly voicing - are, and general stance of China towards Russia, I do not think anything would happen.
I wonder how would this play out. I used to hold Hugo's in high regard a while ago, but given the wokeisation and politization of everything lately, I don't really care anymore. But I heard WSFS are pretty woke, and so I wonder how it would sit with some of them to appear on the same scene with an actual fascist for once. I am not sure what is the function of the "guest of honor", but obviously the distinguished position alone, in any other setting, for an US person of similar views, would trigger them immediately. And, for various reasons, being Ukraine-friendly is in fashion with the wokes for now. But, the wokes appear to be very deferential to China in general, and maybe they could just pretend nothing is happening. After all, Disney literally filmed a movie with the concentration camps as the background, and everybody pretty much just shrugged. The various Puppies have also a chance to point at this as an exposure of the hypocrisy of the wokes (as if we were short of examples otherwise?) - would they use it?
The other guests of honor are Cixin Liu (who earned the honor, I think, and being Chinese, probably is appropriate figure to appear in this position) and Robert J. Sawyer, a Canadian writer of whom I know virtually nothing, except watching Flashforward (did not read, but liked the idea), and praise by Orson Scott Card, which I value very highly (so maybe I should check more into him?). I wonder if he has had any thoughts on the matter either?
Why is the world science fiction convention being held in, or all places, China? I would assume that an international group of writers would prefer to meet up somewhere that has rather more freedom of expression.
The host of each WorldCon is voted on by the members of the WorldCon two years previously who also commit to buying a membership to the WorldCon they are voting on. A supporting membership (which gets souvenir programmes etc. plus voting rights but not admission to the con) costs about 50 USD, so you can buy a vote in site selection for about 100 USD. The Chengdu WorldCon bought 2000 votes and outvoted the core WorldCon fanbase. The conspiracy theory is that Chengdu WorldCon is controlled by a for-profit Chinese real estate developer who are using WorldCon to promote their development, and the 200,000 USD is cheap publicity.
This is of course the second ganking of WorldCon by a bunch of outsiders buying supporting memberships and outvoting the ingroup, after the puppy kerfuffle where two groups of less-woke fans bought memberships and block-voted in the Hugos ballot (which used FPTP at the time, meaning they could control the nominations). Or the third if you count the unsuccessful attempt by the Church of $cientology to buy a Hugo for L. Ron Hubbard (which was disqualified by WorldCon staff on the grounds that all the paperwork for hundreds of members arrived in the same posting and written in the same handwriting).
Core WorldCon fandom does not want WorldCon to be in China, as far as I can see.
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DIE trumps all. Also, China is a big market, you gotta sell books and movies. So if that requires pinching your nose a bit, shutting up you mouth and maybe walking past a concentration camp or two while commenting how beautiful the nature is - I guess you do what you gotta do?
Historically China has been able to trump pretty much all other woke cards, and dictate their own rules to all the uber-woke places like Hollywood and academia. One must not forget that wokeness is hierarchical - being a white woman doesn't get you out from baking the cake, but being a Muslim does. In think in this context China stands above Muslims (which is evident from the fact they are allowed to put Muslims into camps without wokes being offended at the least) so this is pretty high position on the hierarchy. I imagine the pronoun folx would be told to not make waves, and feel the sensitivity of the venue, and they will largely comply. But maybe some sparks will fly, who knows. I'm keeping the popcorn around just in case.
China dictates to Hollywood and academia using raw power, not wokeness. If you want to be in China, you need to conform your worldwide activities to the tastes of Winnie-the-Panda. This is how you get American basketball players in America being expected to mind their language so the NBA can stay on Chinese TV.
These are not opposite things, these are aspects of the same thing. A part of wokeness is gaining power. The source of China's power is different than, say, woke academia's power or NBA's power, it is true - but both are powers, and the former power is greater than the latter, thus the latter submits. In the US, if you tried to gain power by pure lawless intimidation, you may have gotten some pushback (though reading about how FBI is now, I am thinking maybe it's not the case anymore?) - but the "long march through the institutions" tactics of gaining power has been hugely successful. So they do what works.
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The hierarchy of wokeness makes little difference when it encounters a wall that simply does not care about criticism and has a lot of financial power. Unlike in North America, twitterati & such have no power to cancel Chinese entities with a large financial clout, including the government itself.
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Chinese are very low on the totem pole in the west though. They are openly discriminated against in academia, both through admissions and personally. Razib Khan on his blog has talked about how hyper woke academics will say horrible things about Asians in private.
Could you provide examples? (I tried digging it up quickly but wasn’t sure what to look for.)
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