Abstract
This article examines two Chinese sci-fi blockbusters, Crazy Alien and The Wandering Earth, under a theoretical framework of global governance and its variation in Chinese state rhetoric. The article explores how the notion of global governance in China is echoed, reconfigured, and mediated in these two films via their depiction of China's leadership in solving fictionalized futuristic global challenges. It argues that while Crazy Alien criticizes the present, neoliberal global governance, The Wandering Earth envisages a new global governance system led by China. These two films provide case studies of sci-fi blockbusters produced in a non-Western context and illustrate the convergence of Chinese politics with its sci-fi film production. Science fiction elements, such as futuristic settings and advanced technology, first appeared in Chinese cinema as early as 1938 in a comedy film titled Visiting Shanghai After Sixty Years (Yang Xiaozhong, 1938) . While most sci-fi films in China in the past century were low-budget productions that often integrated other genres like comedy and horror (Berra 2013) , Crazy Alien (Ning Hao, 2019) and The Wandering Earth (Frant Gwo, 2019) ushered in a new stage of Chinese sci-fi films -a stage of Hollywoodized blockbusters with big budgets and immersive visual spectacles generated by computer technologies (Yang 2019) . This new stage is manifest not only in these two films' high box office grosses in mainland China -4.69 billion rmb for The Wandering Earth and 2.21 billion rmb for Crazy Alien (Statista 2023) -but also in the emergence of subsequent sci-fi blockbusters, such as Moon Man (Zhang Chiyu, 2022) , Mozart from Space (Chen Sicheng, 2022) , and The Wandering Earth 2 (Frant Gwo, 2023) . The Wandering Earth has been studied in research articles with particular regard to its incorporation of Confucianism and nationalism. Zhu (2020) , for example, insightfully argues that the way The Wandering Earth adapts the original novella, altering a symbolic patricide to a confirmation of patrilineality, resonates with the usage of Confucianism in the official ideology. And Jeroen de Kloet (2022) highlights the nationalist sentiment in The Wandering Earth through its emphasis on Chineseness and patriarchy. By contrast, as of 2023, studies of Crazy Alien are relatively limited and mostly about the translation of its subtitles and its mix of sci-fi and comedy (Zhao, Chen, and Li 2019; Chen 2019) . Taking a different perspective from previous studies, this article concentrates on the relationship between cinema and foreign policy, examining how Crazy Alien and The Wandering Earth mediate and reproduce a Chinese notion of global governance. Promulgated in Western academia after the end of the Cold War, global governance originally refers to the way governmental and nongovernmental entities and institutions collaborate to tackle international issues (McGrew and Held 2002) . In this sense, global governance does not mean that there should be, or has already been a "global government." On the contrary, it means that there should be more than one entity participating in global governance, and that cooperation is needed to solve problems, not least globalwide challenges such as climate change, immigration, and global pandemics. Global governance has, however, been characterized by asymmetrical power relations where the United States play a dominant role (Barnett and Duvall 2004) , but emerging post-Cold War powers such as China, Russia, India, and Brazil are increasingly shaping the current global governance apparatus. In China, the concept of global governance was introduced in official discourses during the 2010s under President Xi Jinping's administration. The Chinese concept of global governance, however, varies from its Western origin in that it emphasizes the leadership of China in global affairs. China's endeavors to take a lead in global governance have been sparked by the fact that when trying to integrate into the global status quo, China still found itself excluded by the Western world to some extent. For example, despite being a member of the wto for 15 years, China has yet to be acknowledged as a "market economy" country due to its socialist characteristics (Breslin and Xiao 2018, 327; Fan 2017, 81) . Instead of being strangled by the rules made by the Western world, China has, as a result, chosen to pursue a more active and leading role in global governance for its own benefit. Xi believes that China should not be constrained by the globalization rules set by Western countries and that China's engagement in governing global affairs is essential for the realization of the "Chinese Dream" -"global governance relates to making rules and deciding the directions of the global order and global system" (Cpcnews 2017 ). These points were reiterated during the G20 summit in Hangzhou, a group study within the Political Bureau of the ccp Central Committee in 2015, and the second group study of the Political Bureau in 2016 (Cpcnews 2017) . In his talk on the 2016 New Year's Eve, Xi announced that "The international community wants to hear China's voice and see China's solutions" (Xinhuanet 2015) . Projects such as the Belt and Road Initiative, which aims to boost economic cooperation between China and Asia, Europe, and Africa, were initiated to meet the state's demand for economic development and global influence, while in the government's rhetoric, the primary aim was to facilitate a win-win mutual cooperation based on shared interests (Liu and Dunford 2016) . The policy of asserting Chinese global leadership was fueled by the Sino-US conflicts of the late 2010s. Originating from the Trump administration's dissatisfaction with China's entrance into local markets with low-price manufactures and cheap labors, the Sino-US trade war started in 2018 and included both protectionist measures by the US against Chinese imports and China's tit-for-tat responses with regard to their US imports (Liu and Woo 2018) . The conflict motivated China to further participate in the global economy and to pursue a leading role in global issues, both strategies seen as "key factors balancing against the bitter feelings Chinese harbor toward the Trump administration for disrespectful treatment during the course of trade negotiations" (Boylan, McBeath, and Wang 2021, 36) . Against this background, a proactive strategy (aka "wolf warrior diplomacy") toward the US became one of the distinctive traits of China's foreign policy (Sullivan and Wang 2023; Yang 2023) . The topic of global governance is new in Chinese sci-fi films where it has not been addressed before The Wandering Earth and Crazy Alien. For instance, in Berra's (2013) retrospective of sci-fi films in mainland China, none of the films analyzed, such as Death Ray on the Coral Island (Zhong Hongmei, 1980) , Dislocation (Huang Jianxin, 1986) , and All Tomorrow's Parties (Yu Lik-wai, 2003) , Arguing that the storytelling in Crazy Alien and The Wandering Earth is infused with the Chinese concept of global governance, this article adds to a multifaceted understanding of Chinese sci-fi films with an emphasis on how they have been shaped by the state's political agendas. In this way, it provides case studies of the interplay between China's politics and mainstream film production. At the same time, it highlights the dynamics of hegemony and resistance in the realm of sci-fi blockbusters, which has traditionally been dominated by Hollywood (Germann 2005; Ibbi 2013 ). While the resistance against Hollywood's cultural hegemony can be observed in world cinemas in the past century, evidenced by European art cinema movements and protectionist approaches in the film industries of non-Western countries (Hildenbrand and Farias 2019; Ikhsano and Stellarosa 2015) , Crazy Alien and The Wandering Earth demonstrate this resistance in terms of alternative values and worldviews. This article argues that although Crazy Alien and The Wandering Earth bear similarities with Hollywood sci-fi films regarding visual spectacles and narrative, their de-Westernized values make them more than just variations on the Hollywood sci-fi paradigm. Addressing a globalized theme, namely the imagined apocalypse that calls for the participation and collaboration of multiple powers, these two films offer a unique perspective on global governance, challenging the Western-centred neoliberal world order.
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