By Ersatz Culture: An announcement was published today stating that Science Fiction World director, double Hugo finalist, and member of the Chengdu Worldcon committee Yao Haijun (姚海军) is “suspected of serious violations of discipline and law” and under investigation by a “Discipline Inspection and Supervision Group”. The original Chinese text of the announcement is below, followed by an unedited machine translation.
权威发布丨四川科幻世界杂志社有限公司董事、副总编辑姚海军 接受纪律审查和监察调查
廉洁四川 2024年10月23日 10:31
四川科幻世界杂志社有限公司董事、副总编辑姚海军涉嫌严重违纪违法，目前四川省纪委监委驻科技厅纪检监察组正对其进行纪律审查，经四川省监委指定泸州市监委管辖，泸州市监委正对其进行监察调查。
姚海军简历
姚海军，男，汉族，1966年5月生，黑龙江伊春人，省委党校在职大学学历。1988年11月参加工作，2006年6月加入中国共产党。
1988年11月至2005年6月，先后在黑龙江省伊春市伊敏林场、山西省太原市《科幻大王》杂志社、四川省科学技术协会《科幻世界》杂志社工作；
2005年6月至2018年12月，任四川省科学技术协会《科幻世界》杂志社副总编辑；
2018年12月至今，任四川科幻世界杂志社有限公司董事、副总编辑。
来源：泸州市监委
编辑：丁冠男
Authoritative release: Yao Haijun, director and deputy editor-in-chief of Sichuan Science Fiction World Magazine Co., Ltd., is subject to disciplinary review and supervisory investigation
Clean Sichuan October 23, 2024 10:31
Yao Haijun, director and deputy editor-in-chief of Sichuan Science Fiction World Magazine Co., Ltd., is suspected of serious violations of discipline and law. He is currently undergoing a disciplinary review by the Discipline Inspection and Supervision Group of the Sichuan Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection and Supervision stationed in the Department of Science and Technology. The Luzhou Municipal Supervision Commission, designated by the Sichuan Provincial Supervision Commission as having jurisdiction, is conducting a supervisory investigation into him.
Yao Haijun’s resume
Yao Haijun, male, Han nationality, was born in May 1966 in Yichun, Heilongjiang Province. He has an on-the-job university degree from the Party School of the Provincial Party Committee. He started working in November 1988 and joined the Communist Party of China in June 2006.
From November 1988 to June 2005, he worked successively at Yimin Forest Farm in Yichun City, Heilongjiang Province, Science Fiction King Magazine in Taiyuan City, Shanxi Province, and Science Fiction World Magazine of Sichuan Provincial Association for Science and Technology;
From June 2005 to December 2018, he served as deputy editor-in-chief of Science Fiction World magazine of Sichuan Association for Science and Technology;
From December 2018 to present, he has served as director and deputy editor-in-chief of Sichuan Science Fiction World Magazine Co., Ltd.
Source: Luzhou Municipal Supervisory Committee
Editor: Ding Guannan
(The above translation is via Google Translate; DeepL produces similar results.)
I have no idea of the nature of this investigation, but it may have been under way for several weeks, given that up until early September, he had been posting to his Weibo account a couple of times a day, but went silent without warning. (A few replies to his later posts asking how he was haven’t received a response.) To the best of my knowledge, he does not appear in any of the photos or videos from the recent Galaxy (Yinhe) or Tianwen Award events that have been held in Chengdu in the past month.
Who is Yao Haijun? Although he has pages on Wikipedia and Fancyclopedia, both are a bit out-of-date. Anyone who still has a copy of the 2023 Hugo Voter packet will find a chapter about him — with a brief English language section — in the Best Related Work Chinese SF: An Oral History: Volume 1 from page 331 onwards, from which I’ve taken a couple of the photos below.
He is probably most notable as the original editor of The Three-Body Problem, first published in serialized form in Science Fiction World magazine.
He was a Best Editor (Long Form) Hugo finalist in 2023 and 2024, probably for the “World Science Fiction Masters” series of translated books, which feature his name on the cover, and for which he is credited as Series Editor. Recent(ish) titles include Mary Robinette Kowal’s first two Lady Astronaut books and a Connie Willis collection; there were samples of various works from this series in the last two Hugo voter packets. He is also the co-editor of the anthology that included three of this year’s Hugo Best Novella and Best Short Story finalists.
He was a member of the Chengdu Worldcon bid team, and went on to be one of two Honorary Co-Chairs of the con. A flyer distributed at DisCon III shortly after the site selection vote also listed him as one of two “Head[s] of Hugo administration division”, although by the time of a May 2022 update, others were listed in these roles.
In the 1980s he was the editor of the Nebula (Xingyun) fanzine, which I believe may have been the first in China. He was also one of the co-founders in 2010 of the similarly named award.
More recently, a Weibo post by Science Fiction World stated that Yao Haijun would take on additional responsibilities. As of today, that post seems to be no longer available, but the File 770 coverage is here.