(Reuters) – Netflix Inc. NFLX.O., Responding to US senators’ concerns about the company’s plans to adopt the Chinese science-fiction book trilogy, said Friday it does not agree with the Chinese author’s views on the Chinese government’s treatment of Uighur Muslims.
Five Republican U.S. senators this week urged Netflix to reconsider plans to include the book in a TV series because they said the author defended the Chinese government’s imprint on ethnic Xinhua and other Muslims in the Xinjiang region.
“Three-Body Problem” and two sequels were written by Liu Siksin.
Netflix announced this month that it was turning books into live-action, an English-language TV series led by DB Weiss and David Benifo, creators of the HBO megahit “Game Th F Thrones.”
Liu serves as a consultant producer on the project.
“Mr. Liu is not the creator of the show but the author of the book. We do not agree with his comments, which are not entirely related to his book or the Netflix show,” Dean Garfield, vice president of Netflix Global Public Policy, said in a letter to senators.
“If anything, the government is helping their economy and trying to lift them out of poverty,” Liu told New Yorker magazine in 2019.
“If you slow down the country a little, the result will be terrible.”
The senators also asked Netflix to reconsider the implications of providing the Liu platform in the construction of the project.
Netflix streaming service is available in more than 190 countries but not in China.
The United States and human rights groups have criticized China’s treatment of Uighurs.
China’s foreign ministry has repeatedly denied the existence of an internment camp in Xinjiang, calling the facilities commercial and educational, and accusing anti-China forces of smelling its Xinjiang policy.
Report by Ram Venkat in Bengaluru; Edited by Jason Neely
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