While still not wanting to work in the mines, btw. That's the part that always kills me when I read these accounts, is the intelligentsia bitching about how they did so well in school, and these damn workers are taking up so many resources even though they didn't do well in school. There is no one going 'Then you go work in the mines if you think it is that easy.'

The good (bad) part of the Cultural Revolution was that that would forcibly happen. Professors who complained how easy the peasants had it were literally kidnapped by student organizations and dropped off in the country side to fend for themselves. The problem was that it was massively disorganized and a pretty easy system to abuse, which also gave the professors no incentive to actually grade anything. But there was a short-time, where if you said bullshit, you ate shit for it, and no one ever forgot about it.

I felt like it was patronizing as well, and thought that the one society in the future which was more androgynous (therefore less feminine) was throwing a bit of shade.

Nonetheless I think the protagonist of the final book was the one who used her caring and love (of course gendered towards a woman) to essentially solve the final and largest conflict of the series. Something that could not have been done with the other men who were shown to be either stoic or excessively macho.

What was the ridiculous part? It’s been a while since I read the first book.

The ridiculous part is there are actual political interferences within high level states research institute. The CPC actually shelters all personnel who work on highly secretive projects (ei. space program and nuclear weapon program) and state level research for the fallout of the Cultural Revolution

If three body problem is ''anti-communist'' 90% of the CPC, 100% of the party members are also anti communists.

Some people might agree with this lol

You're probably right about the intent, but I'd call that more of an obscure dig than a major smear of the actual person.

I can enjoy books without perfect politics because I do not insist on describing real events through the lens of fictional characters.

This article also has some questionable (racist?) stuff. Like what does he mean by 'Chinese society'?

"Types are central to the way Liu thinks of people; he has a knack for quickly sketching the various classes that make up Chinese society."

Some more:

"Much of the books’ resonance, however, comes from the fact that they also offer a faithful portrait of China’s stringently hierarchical bureaucracy, that labyrinthine product of Communism."

This is the worst offender:

"Liu closed his eyes for a long moment and then said quietly, “This is why I don’t like to talk about subjects like this. The truth is you don’t really—I mean, can’t truly—understand.” He gestured around him. “You’ve lived here, in the U.S., for, what, going on three decades?” The implication was clear: years in the West had brainwashed me. In that moment, in Liu’s mind, I, with my inflexible sense of morality, was the alien."

He also talked about a million Uyghur's in re-education camps, the one child policy, and cremation as opposed to burying people in the ground.

I do find it funny and way too on the nose that the only ee poster that showed up here misgendered my partner

I don't think that is the part that they are disputing but it could be, as it is unclear what they are disputing.

That said, alot of what happened in the Cultural Revolution was 'Talk shit, get hit.' Which isn't exactly a great disciplinary system, especially when it can be based on hear-say.

Are you from the US? How often have you read stories as such for the Kent State massacre, the Battle of Blair Mountain, or the drowning of the hundreds in the Seine in Paris?

It does more than show what was at a point in time, it is powerful propaganda, as your comment shows. Not only do you use "Mao era", but also imply that it was awful. Which is quite a big stroke used.

Besides that there are ways to frame scenes, the one's in the three body problem have the problem that they are leading and are part of fiction, yet people take them for depictions of reality and construct their idea of what was from it.

Within the CPC the Cultural Revolution - rightfully - got critiqued quite a bit and the phrase in regards to Mao of "70% good, 30% bad" is still common.