New York (AFP)

Five US Republican senators have asked Netflix to reconsider its decision to adapt Chinese author Liu Cixin's bestselling novel "The Three-Body Problem", shocked by his statements targeting Uyghurs.

Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackurn refers to comments made by the novelist in an interview with The New Yorker magazine, published in June.

Asked about the fate of the Uyghur Muslim minority, the object of massive detentions in internment camps, Liu Cixin defended the Chinese authorities.

“Would you rather they cut people up in train stations or schools with terrorist attacks?” Replied the novelist.

"Rather, the government is helping their economy and trying to lift them out of poverty."

"We are concerned about Netflix's decision to work with an individual who is relaying dangerous Chinese Communist Party propaganda," Senator Blackburn wrote in a letter, dated Thursday, to Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos.

The letter is not only due to the fact that it is an adaptation of the cult novel by Liu Cixin, but also that the author is directly associated with the project as a consultant.

"We ask Netflix to seriously reconsider" its decision and take into account "what it means to offer a platform to Mr. Liu by producing this project," concludes the letter signed, besides Marsha Blackburn, by her colleagues Rick Scott , Kevin Cramer, Thom Tillis and Martha McSally.

Asked by AFP, Netflix did not follow up.

Revealed in early September, the project to adapt the science fiction trilogy "The Three-Body Problem" to a television series promises to be very ambitious.

The platform notably involved the two creators of the "Game of Thrones" series, David Benioff and DB Weiss, recruited at a gold price by Netflix.

The online video service has already been questioned recently by elected Republican officials for having posted the French film "Mignonnes" online, accused of hypersexualizing young girls.

The platform defended the film by explaining that it was a "social chronicle" intended to show the dangers of this hypersexualization.

© 2020 AFP