Poster for 2006 version of Japan Sinks.

Whenever an international blockbuster lands in China, a portion of the domestic media coverage is devoted to comparisons with the Chinese film industry. In this case the question is: what about China's home-grown disaster movies? Where are they? For that matter, are there any Chinese disaster novels?

In an opinion piece printed in today's Beijing Youth Daily, Henan resident Yue Jianguo argues that, rather than leading to widespread panic, disaster movies can be a useful way to increase the public's readiness, thereby minimizing the danger when disaster actually strikes.

On 14 September, the most expensive Japanese movie in history, Japan Sinks, will premiere in China. This is a remake of the 1973 original, which was adapted from Sakyo Komatsu's disaster novel. The story: several brilliant, righteous oceanographers discover signs that the Japanese archipelago is sinking. When the news gets out, the entire country panics. Amid continual earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanic eruptions, people begin to transfer their property overseas with the thought of fleeing the country. The government drafts a plan to migrate people to other parts of the world, only to meet fierce opposition and countermeasures from other countries. The story ends as the islands of Japan slip beneath the waves.

This movie, with its mission of awakening and strengthening Japan's sense of urgency and awareness of early-warnings, is too alarmist for many of us; can the Japanese people, who have lived peaceful, affluent lives for the better half of a century, possibly accept such a film? The answer is yes. People who have been to Japan's book stores know that this kind of book can be found all over: books like Japan Crisis, Japan Faces Challenges, Japan's Tragedy, Japan's Coming Collapse, and Whither Japan?. Japan is an island nation, surrounded on all sides by the ocean. The country is like a raft that can capsize at any time. Add to this the earthquakes, frequent volcanic eruptions, scarcity of natural resources, and a dense population....the people lack a sense of security, and this feeling naturally fosters a deep-seated sense of urgency and early-warning awareness. Japan Sinks exists against this backdrop.

Then I naturally have the following question: China is a place where natural disasters frequently occur, so why is this type of book so scarce? Perhaps this has to do with geography. China is in no danger of being swallowed by the ocean. Its territory is vast, and even if natural disasters like earthquakes, storms, floods, and droughts occur frequently, there is space to spare. We have the advantage compared to Japan, but will this gradually form a sense of satisfaction, a mentality in which we worship of the past and dislike looking to the future, and in which we lack a sense of urgency or awareness of early-warnings?

Preparation for major natural disasters is nothing more than revealing or "exaggerating" the detailed premonitions of disaster that normal people cannot easily discover, inviting the public and the media to turn their eyes toward possible disasters, pushing scholars and scientists to perform expert analyses and predictions, and suggesting various plans for avoiding disasters or reduce their dangers to the lowest level possible. When repeated national debate finally results in a commonly accepted wisdom, the government and legislature may take the necessary measures to institute necessary laws and regulations to ensure that various plans are effective. In short, this functions no differently from a weather forecast - even though it may sometimes be a false alarm, it would be much worse not to predict the weather. So we should not simply be afraid that the public will be unable to endure the assault of preparations for major emergencies. We ought to understand that the public is weak in this regard only because it has been ignorant of disaster prediction for such a long time. If we are able to perform drills and educate the public about such preparations, then people will no longer be overly panicked. Instead, they will face disasters calm and composed.

I am aware of at least a few Chinese disaster novels. In Crisis in 2009 (危机在2009年发生), a novel written by mystery author Lan Ma in 2001, a spatial anomaly threatens the end of humanity. Tsunamis swamp Shanghai and Osaka, and a Japanese terrorist group takes advantage of the chaos aims nuclear weapons at China.

Han Song's Western Voyage: 2066 (2066之西行漫记, aka Red Star Over America), describes a United States in the throes of a cultural revolution. The oceans have risen - Japan is no longer a physical country - and because of a systemic breakdown in infrastructure, the retaining walls surrounding America's coastal cities have collapsed.

And then there's Lala's Green Fields (绿野), the winner of the 2006 Galaxy Award for Best Science Fiction Book, presented at the 2007 SF conference in Chengdu earlier this week.

A collection of four stories, Green Fields is at least in part a disaster novel. The title novella tells of an ecological disaster that consumes the earth in 2105. In a world where the human immune system has completely broken down, people rely on artificial skin and constant injections of antibiotics to survive. But when the Earth's mantle breaks through the crust, it might be the end of life as we know it. Ocean levels rise, wiping out coastal cities, and water from ancient underground lakes is sent spewing into the atmosphere, carrying with it prehistoric germs that the human body has never seen before.

Both Han Song and Lala set their stories in the US - this is not uncommon in Chinese SF, even in stories no one would expect to cause panic in the populace.