Chapter Eight: Toxic Colonialism, Alienation, and Posthuman Dystopia in Chen Qiufan

Abstract

Chen Qiufan's sci-fi novel Waste Tide attests to the dual alienation of nature and humans. Global capitalism, geopolitical conflict, the scramble for natural resources, and rash development have destroyed the rural community, ruined the health of local populations, and eroded the natural environment. Technical advances—artificial intelligence, brain-computer interface, biochemical technologies, and cyborg construction—aggravate metabolic rifts in the human-nature relations, threatening human bodies, regional culture, and local traditions. Driven by profit motives and the desire for power, the advanced technologies are accelerating the alienation of humans from their bodies, from one another, and from nature.