We have all come across dystopian visions of a bad future, like Margaret Atwood鈥檚 The Handmaid鈥檚 Tale. Less familiar is the practice of bad futurism, often hidden inside seemingly compelling stories, which promises an absurd tomorrow based on foolhardy assumptions about the present. It was my pursuit of the latter that brought me to a packed convention hall at the World Science Fiction Convention in Glasgow, UK, in August to watch an all-star panel of authors and critics discussing 鈥渢echno-Orientalism鈥�. As I discovered, however, this idea goes far beyond fiction; it has infected our political and economic plans for the future, too.
You may not know the term, but if you have watched the 1982 movie Blade Runner or the 2002 TV series Firefly, you have seen it in action. As critic Kelly Kanayama put it, techno-Orientalism is a collection of tropes that describe a 鈥渂ad, Asian-influenced future with no Asians in it鈥�. In Blade Runner, an apocalyptically polluted Los Angeles is full of signs in Japanese, but features virtually no Japanese characters. In the dark future of the space opera Firefly, characters curse in Mandarin, but we never meet a Chinese person. These are just two of many sci-fi stories that exhibit techno-Orientalism, which condemns and erases Asian cultural power at the same time.
Mai-Anh Vu Peterson at Britain鈥檚 , an independent arts organisation, pointed out that another techno-Orientalist trick is to represent Asian people as robots 鈥� or, as Kanayama summed it up, 鈥渟exy Asian lady robots鈥�. Outside sci-fi, Asian people are depicted as robotic, willing to do any kind of labour obediently. The panellists agreed that this idea fits into the stereotype that they are technologically advanced but culturally backwards, needing 鈥渉umanisation鈥� by the West. Rho Chung, a critic and researcher at the University of Edinburgh, UK, drew a parallel between the fear of automation stealing jobs and the fear that Asian people will.
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The term techno-Orientalism is a nod to Edward Said, whose 1978 book Orientalism laid bare the way Western nations have demonised and fetishised their Eastern neighbours. It came into widespread use in the 2010s, thanks in part to the influential anthology , edited by David S. Roh et. al., and has since become a handy epithet to describe futurism based on racism and prejudice rather than evidence-based speculation.
In the dark future of the space opera Firefly, characters curse in Mandarin, but we never meet a Chinese person
This isn鈥檛 just a matter of sci-fi鈥檚 plausibility: techno-Orientalist anxieties influence the real world too, especially when it comes to science and technology. That鈥檚 because techno-Orientalism is a fantasy about how Asian nations will destroy the West using their superior tech.
In the US, this fantasy has made it for scientists to collaborate with Chinese colleagues across the Pacific, accused of colluding with the Chinese government. It is arguably fuelling many US politicians鈥� obsession with TikTok, created by ByteDance, a firm founded in China. Fear of an Asian-dominated future has inspired anti-immigration laws across Europe, steep tariffs on Chinese goods in the US, and violence aimed at Asian immigrants in the UK.
Bad futurism leads to bad decision-making, and that can slow or even stop valuable innovation. So what鈥檚 the solution? During the panel in Glasgow, author Eliza Chan said it was partly a matter of telling stories that include actual Asian people and represent Asian cultures in respectful ways. Her fantasy novel explores a world where figures from Chinese and British folklore deal with war, immigration and finding community at the bottom of the sea. Aliette De Bodard鈥檚 series, meanwhile, is set in a distant future where Chinese and Vietnamese cultures have given rise to a spacefaring civilisation.
Still, fiction alone can鈥檛 solve this problem. We need the US and China to renew their decades-long , which fosters collaboration between them on scientific endeavours. As of me writing this, the agreement has lapsed, though reports that the two nations are still in talks. The European Commission needs to invite more Asian partners into the , a 鈧�53.5 billion fund for research into climate, health and more. And we need to see Western governments creating a safer environment for Asian immigrant workers and students.
Techno-Orientalism leads to fear of the future and of each other. If we want our civilisations to advance, it is time to throw the old tropes in the trash, reach beyond our borders and build something better.
Annalee鈥檚 week
What I鈥檓 reading
Model Machines: A history of the Asian as automaton, a fascinating exploration of the Asian robot trope, by Long T. Bui.
What I鈥檓 watching
Ramen Akaneko, a delightful anime about cats who run a noodle shop in Japan.
What I鈥檓 working on
Shipping free books to states in the US where they have been banned.
Annalee Newitz is a science journalist and author. Their latest book is Stories Are Weapons: Psychological warfare and the American mind. They are the co-host of the Hugo-winning podcast Our Opinions Are Correct. You can follow them @annaleen and their website is techsploitation.com
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