I think it's worth noting that the 3 body series were originally written in Chinese and translated to other languages. Some of the issue with characters and dialog can be attributed to Chinese culture where people cannot or will not speak their mind in public or to their superiors for example. I think in some cases where a character in the books makes outright puzzling decisions from a western perspective probably makes perfect sense from a Chinese perspective. Some of these issues can probably also be attributed to the translation as well. Personally I really enjoyed not only the hard sci-fi aspect of the books but the predominately Chinese perspective you get from the books. I loved the way he tied the story historically back to the Cultural Revolution in China for example.

I have read the creators of the Netflix series have adapted the story to make it more of a global epic, changing some of the characters from Chinese to other nationalities and you see that in the trailers as well. I think this probably makes a lot of sense for Netflix given their target audiences but I hope they still keep a lot of the Chinese aspect of the books and some of the characters as I do think it's important for the story.