The Politics of China’s Climate Fiction Cinema: The Westphalian System, Tianxia, and the Human Community with a Shared Future

Description

This project examines contemporary China’s Cli-Fi cinema to understand its messages about the environment and
politics. Cli-Fi is a subgenre of science fiction that “explores how the world may look in the process or
aftermath of dealing with climate change” (Perkins-Kirkpatrick 2017). Climate change has become a major
domestic and international agenda item for the Chinese government (Bjørkum 2005; Delman 2011). Since 2019,
the Chinese government has developed a policy to support science fiction film production as new mainstream
films that promote mainstream ideology and help legitimize the Party. Thus, it is important to understand how
climate change is framed and presented in Chinese Cli-Fi cinema in relation to climate and environmental
topics, and national and international politics. The project will develop a spatial mapping of the films and
their topics to develop a comprehensive understanding of the political and environmental aspects of China’s
Cli-Fi cinema.

Period	1 Jun 2025 → 19 Aug 2025
Degree of Recognition	International