The 'Majority of People' in The Three-Body Problem
“If China ever becomes democratic, it would be a living hell. I would leave China the very next day.” —Liu Cixin, in a 2019 interview with The New Yorker
Liu Cixin has openly voiced his distrust toward Western-style democracy on many occasions, revealing a certain pessimism about giving the majority control over their destiny. This political inclination is vividly reflected in much of his fiction. The Three-Body Problem repeatedly conveys these beliefs.
The entire trilogy tells an earth-spanning chronicle: from 1453 AD through 18,906,416 AD (Galactic Calendar 18,904,136), then on to the 647th micro-universe and to the Second Year—a vast sweep of nearly twenty million years. Throughout, one message rings true:
“The masses are the creators of history.”
But, of course, not in an optimistic way.
Over these twenty million years, countless heroes have arisen—Zhang Beihai, Luo Ji, Yun Tianming, Thomas Wade…—figures who, in critical moments, did everything possible to save humanity. Yet, in the end, their efforts dissolve like foam on the tide of history.
It’s intriguing that The Three-Body Problem begins during the Cultural Revolution. The very first pages of the first book recount Ye Wenjie’s father, Ye Zhetai, being beaten to death by Red Guards. Whether Liu Cixin intended a particular metaphor here, I can’t say, but only as I wrote this reflection did I realize: perhaps this opening conceals a deeply embedded conflict that runs throughout the series—the clash between individual elites and a mediocre, ordinary majority, or in other words, reason versus emotion. Ye Zhetai’s death seems to foreshadow the results of such a conflict: the victory of emotion. Compared to the Trisolarans, humanity’s chief advantage is their ability to love, to possess a much richer emotional life, rather than being cold executors of orders. Even deceit, among other traits, could be seen as an outgrowth of emotion. Of course, this can be regarded as a blessing for humanity, but it also dooms them to a tragic fate. Perhaps that’s over-interpretation, but it is a remarkable coincidence.
The trilogy is not written as a pure chronicle. Instead, each book follows one or several pivotal characters—Wang Miao in the first book, Zhang Beihai and Luo Ji in the second, and Cheng Xin in the third—lavishly depicting the grand era through their personal perspectives. Ingeniously, the “hibernation” mechanism allows these characters not only to participate in events spanning decades but to act over much longer stretches of history. Ironically, the painstaking designs, maneuvers, and sacrifices depicted at length in the novels are often washed away by events that occur in a mere sentence—the result of hibernation leaps or a handful of seemingly minor incidents. It’s sharply satirical.
When humanity first confronted the Trisolarans, the situation was absolutely desperate. Sophons locked down human scientific progress and surveilled society, stripping humanity of any technological or strategic advantage. As a result, humans leveraged their only true strength: disguise and deceit, launching the Wallfacer Project. After grasping the Dark Forest Theory, Luo Ji broadcast the coordinates of star 187J3X1 and went into hibernation, awaiting validation. But Luo Ji is awakened in haste, before his theory can be confirmed—because, with unanimous votes, the UN Fleet Joint Conference terminated the Wallfacer Project. Humanity thus forfeited its only edge. The massive investments and heroic sacrifices of countless predecessors are squandered by the arrogance and naïveté of the era. Only a few realize what’s happening—Ding Yi laments, “I’m a man from two centuries ago and yet I’m still teaching physics at university today.”
The story of fellow Wallfacer Rey Diaz adds a tragic overtone to this irony. Luo Ji remarks: “All four Wallfacers are great—they saw humanity’s doomed fate at the very beginning of the war.” Yet, whether by narrative design or not, only these four of the planet’s brightest minds, plus Zhang Beihai, truly grasp humanity’s prospects. Reasonableness of plot aside, those who believe in humanity’s impending defeat always know they have but two choices: go all-in, risking mutual destruction for deterrence, or become escapists. In Diaz’s plan, the public focuses solely on the apocalyptic threat to Earth, neglecting its strategic deterrent value. When the plan is exposed, Diaz returns to his beloved Bolivia and is stoned to death by his own cherished people. As he once said on the plane, “The greatest obstacle to humanity’s survival is humanity itself.” This is not only the cause of his personal tragedy but the root of humanity’s greater tragedy. Diaz’s fate echoes Nietzschean Übermensch philosophy—Übermenschen often die at the hands of those they seek to protect.
Perhaps the destruction of the Solar Fleet raised humanity’s risk threshold, for after Luo Ji inherits Diaz’s plan and establishes a similar deterrence system, the species—now facing extinction—venerates him as a guardian. But when Luo Ji tells Sophon at the dawn of deterrence, “Strangely, I no longer feel like one of humanity,” and later, when stepping down as Swordholder, he is almost tried for “crimes against all life.” Even the deterrence secured by Luo Ji at peril of his life is broken in just sixty years by Cheng Xin, a new Swordholder selected via democratic vote, despite there being several seemingly qualified candidates. Here, humanity blinks first in the dangerous standoff. Admittedly, compared to the cold-blooded Luo Ji, who can eradicate two civilizations with the press of a button, Cheng Xin—the attractive, highly educated new face, radiating maternal warmth—is more suited to this feminized age, and a more palatable choice than the blunt “ancient” men.
After deterrence fails, the Gravity, captained by Ai AA, takes over for Cheng Xin, sending a gravitational wave broadcast to complete humanity’s final act of deterrence. Both humanity and the Trisolarans scramble for survival. Thomas Wade’s Star Ring Group pursues faster-than-light flight, a technology the Federation labels “escapism” and bans, for people fear inequality before death. Wade awakens Cheng Xin, the Star Ring Group is seized by the government, and Wade is executed, spelling the end for escapism, that last spark inherited from Zhang Beihai and Hines. Ultimately, the handful of prescient, daring individuals all fall to the will of the short-sighted majority, and extinction is inevitable.
Much of the criticism of The Three-Body Problem centers on blasting Cheng Xin as an archetypal “bleeding heart” who ruins two chances to save mankind. From our omniscient perspective, it’s easy to judge. But in truth, Cheng Xin is no more than the personification of the countless ordinary people Liu Cixin abstractly describes—a strawman constructed for demolition. To her credit, Cheng Xin is a coherent and sincere idealist: her thoughts and actions are in alignment, all driven by a kind heart. When a mistaken light particle strike is imminent, she refuses to trade the lives of regular people for her personal survival. Her greatest mistake is her faith that goodwill can solve all problems. So, more precisely, Cheng Xin embodies the benevolence of the ordinary masses; the novel can critique her shortsightedness, not her malice.
The chaos before the Droplet assault and the false alarm of the light particle strike in Broadcast Year 8 are moments when the novel zeroes in on the darkness within human nature: crowds use laser pistols to shoot at the space elevator to prevent presumed “escapists,” while a minority forcibly triggers fusion engines, sacrificing others to save themselves. Whether Liu writes about human kindness or evil, neither seems to bring about any good result.
Thus, Thomas Wade says, “Lose your humanity and you lose much; lose your animality and you lose everything.” His creed: “Advance! Move forward at all costs!” The masses see things differently. Like Cheng Xin, they say, “I choose humanity.” They see only what they’re losing now, not the big picture. Diaz and Wade are both executed by humanity, Tyler is driven to suicide, Luo Ji is demonized, Cheng Xin becomes the Swordholder, and in the end, the Solar System is squashed into a two-dimensional pancake. Liu is quietly telling us: “This is what results from all that humanity.”
All in all, democracy in The Three-Body Problem becomes a running joke—a source of endless frustration—whereby the sweat and toil of a wise few, unskilled (or uninterested) in pandering to the masses, is invariably undone. It’s a haunting and powerful satire of so-called “democratic society.”
It’s easy to draw parallels to the recent situation in Ukraine. Ukraine’s trajectory was driven step by step by the allure of democracy to its current predicament. In the presidential election Zelensky won, the populace overwhelmingly chose him over the seasoned Poroshenko, mainly because he had “played a good president” in his TV show. This is a textbook example of the unavoidable celebrity-obsessed, shortsighted politics of Western-style democracy. In another work, China 2185, Liu Cixin featured a female president, embodying this same transformation of politicians into celebrities under democracy.
At the trilogy’s close, as the Returners demand the restoration of mass to the macro-universe so it can restart, Cheng Xin laments, “If everyone in every micro-universe thought that way, the macro-universe would surely die.” Moments later, she pleads, “Could I just keep five more kilograms? The macro-universe won’t fail to restart because of five kilograms.” The ending is left open—the novel never answers whether the universe dies due to these withheld masses. The text notes, “For among the countless immortal micro-universes, there must be some portion that will not respond to the call for mass return,” suggesting the universe most likely drifts into irreversible silence, unable to begin anew. Liu masterfully amplifies the vulnerability of human nature, echoing it among the multitudes of alien civilizations.
Some say Liu’s “Dark Forest” theory is an insight born from witnessing the ten-year Cultural Revolution and its damage to personal relationships; I’ll reserve judgment. But Liu’s characters embody divinity, humanity, and animality. Divinity is the drive for self-actualization—Zhang Beihai and Luo Ji. Humanity appears in moral and legal compromises between people—Cheng Xin. But The Three-Body Problem lays bare our animality: survival is always civilization’s highest imperative. In the end, it is precisely because humanity clings to its humanity that it meets destruction.
Humanity is not wrong—Liu Cixin simply lays bare the bloody truth. He is not mocking anyone in particular, or rather, he is mocking everyone.