Fake: The Release Of Ai Weiwei

258 Fake. That's where mainland artist and former detainee Ai Weiwei lives. What was once a comment on the authenticity of "home" has now become a fact of Ai's life. Suspended in a "fake" existence, Ai is anything but free.


Last Wednesday when Ai was released after serving 81 days in detention, the first impulse was to breath a sigh of relief and then rejoice. But what has become clear is that Ai, along with many others, is still firmly under the boot of the Communist thugocracy. As Gao Wenqian, a former Communist Party official who fled to the U.S. after the Tiananmen Square massacre says, “You can say that Ai Weiwei was transferred from a small prison to the prison outside.”



Watching Ai return silently to his Bejing home last week was a chilling scene. The once gregarious artist had been muzzled - he looked worn and haggard and was unable to answer even the simplest questions about his detention. That is one among a long list of conditions pertaining to his "release." He was never formally charged with anything, yet the state-run Xinhua news agency reported that he confessed to his "crimes." The government has now ordered him to pay 12 million yuan ($1.85 million) in back taxes and fines.

When the Arab Spring started gathering momentum the Chinese authorities freaked out and began a crackdown on civil society not seen since the wake of the Tiananmen massacre in 1989. As Newsweek reports:

With a powerful “security faction” now ascendant in the Communist Party, at least 500 people have been detained in the past four months alone, observers estimate. Chinese officials have also severely curtailed press freedom, apparently disrupted Internet and mobile-phone service, and gone after human-rights lawyers in a campaign of torture and disappearances. An Amnesty International report states that, consequently, only “a few hundred out of a total of 204,000 lawyers risk taking up human-rights cases.

This is the China that outsiders don't see. It's a terrifying place to be if you believe in basic freedoms, a place where the rule of law and justice are arbitrary constructs, the fake illusions of a tyrannous regime. Fake is only as good as those who settle for less. The Chinese know they deserve better, which is why the current leadership fears its own people.

Hong Kong Vs. China: A Restless Truce

June 4th is the twenty-second anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. A Candlelight Vigil is held every year at Hong Kong's Victoria Park to commemorate it, the only place in all of China free to hold such an event.

The Forbidden City, Beijing

The vigil has always irked Beijing and they've tried for years to undermine any sign of "subversion" in Hong Kong. Authorities have deployed an old party trick: accuse someone of straying from the official line and shady figures emerge from the shadows to shuttle the poor sod away. It's a favorite tactic used by regimes currently darkening corners of the globe such as Burma (Myanmar), Uzbekistan and North Korea. What they share, apart from gross human rights violations, is a thriving relationship with China.

The Great Wall

In the "Middle Kingdom" the politics of vilification enjoys a long tradition. Anyone or anything that's perceived to threaten the government is quickly branded as counter-revolutionary. It happened with deadly precision during the Cultural Revolution of 1966-1976 when even esteemed cadres were not immune. Former paramount leader, Deng Xiaoping, vanished twice, once in the late 60s and then again in 1976 after the death of Premier Zhou Enlai sparked the protests known as the Tiananmen Incident.

It happened again during the prelude to the June 4, 1989 Tiananmen massacre when the student protests were growing. The Communist Party newspaper, People's Daily, published an editorial accusing a "small number of people with ulterior purposes" of stirring up student unrest, of being counter-revolutionaries and creating turmoil. This effectively sealed the fate of the organizers and as a result, hardened their resolve to demand concessions from the government. The editorial is generally regarded as a major cause of the stalemate that arose between the students and the government, eventually causing the massacre and the subsequent purging of Zhao Ziyang, the reformist General Secretary of the Communist Party.

Zhao Ziyang with present-day Premier of China, Wen Jiabao, Tiananmen Square, May 19, 1989

As with the events of Tiananmen, Beijing is currently displaying increasing hostility by using trumped-up accusations to silence dissent. The list is long and includes Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Lui Xiaobo and internationally acclaimed artist, Ai Weiwei.

"Marble Arm" by Ai Weiwei (courtesy of Galerie Urs Meile)

This form of government terrorism threatens regional stability. As the lessons of World War II prove, a country that deprives its own citizens of human rights will disregard the rights of others. While Hong Kong enjoys more freedoms than the mainland as a result of its status as a Special Administrative Region (SAR) and "one country two systems" policy, Beijing has succeeded in tightening the noose in ever subtle and nefarious ways.

"Running Dog" Martin Lee with Nancy Pelosi

A few years ago, Beijing engaged in a so-called "patriotism campaign" to discredit the democratic movement. Martin Lee, the founding Chairman of the Hong Kong Democratic Party, came under fire from Xinhua, the Beijing government's mouthpiece, which demonized Lee as a "traitor." The China Daily, the Communist Party's English newspaper, also chimed in to attack Lee as a "running dog of colonialists." Lee's family was also targeted. Government officials in Beijing lashed out at his late father, noted Kuomintang (KMT) General Li Yin-wo, also denouncing him as a traitor. Lee's father resisted the 1941-1945 Japanese occupation of Hong Kong, as well as the communists. He's widely regarded as a hero, an embodiment of virtue and a prime example of what differentiates Hong Kong from mainland China. For how long this difference can survive is up to the vigilance of patriots like Lee.

Love The Future: Ai Weiwei

"I really don't dare believe that in this society, even love for the future can disappear" - anonymous Internet post

Since Ai Weiwei was detained on April 3rd, his name has been banned, deleted, erased, wacked, clubbed - whatever - by the Internet police in a futile attempt to prevent people from typing what everyone already knows. As a result, netizens have adapted and are using different variants of his name. Ai Weiwei - 艾未未 - can be read/pronounced as "ai weilai" or "love the future" and several people have been using it. It's a beautiful turn of phrase that suggests Ai is the future of China, regardless of what the government might wish.

Above is a screenshot of the statement that appeared briefly on the state news agency, Xinhua, before it was deleted today. He's being investigated for "suspected economic crimes," or corruption. On April 6th, an article in the state-run Global Times threatened that Ai "will pay a price" without specifying for what exactly. It reads like a ransom note from a gang of desperate thugs.

Ai with one of his "crimes" - a name list of the more than 5,000 children who perished in the May 12, 2008 Sichuan Earthquake

After the Sichuan Earthquake, Ai helped launch a "Citizens' Investigation" that uncovered evidence of a corruption scandal involving shoddy construction of what became known as "tofu" schools. In August 2009, while trying to testify for his friend, Tan Zuoren, he was attacked by police in his Chengdu hotel room in the middle of the night. A month later in Munich, he underwent emergency brain surgery to stop internal bleeding. From October 2009 to January 2010, his Munich exhibition, "So Sorry," included an installation made up of 9000 children's backpacks spelling out, "She lived happily for seven years in this world," a quote from a mother whose child died in the earthquake. Ai has also tweeted the names of the victims on their birthdays, using the hashtag #512birthday.

The government is saying Ai's disappearance has "nothing to do with human rights or freedom of expression." If that's so, then the deaths of the children had nothing to do with an earthquake and everything to do with government corruption.

"Dissident": A Chinese Honorific

Artist Ai Weiwei Saluting His Comrades

While the world has been looking the other way at Japan and Libya, China has been busy silencing "dissidents" or chasing them out of the country. From the South China Morning Post:

Xiao Shu, an outspoken veteran columnist for Southern Weekly, was pressured into taking a two-year sabbatical after his employer ordered him to stop writing, a former colleague said. Phone calls to Southern Weekly chief editors rang unanswered yesterday.

Xiao Shu, 48, whose real name is Chen Min , wrote in his blog: "Sadness is inevitable, but...I have no regret being independent, fair and rational [in my writing]."

In addition, Peng Xiaoyun - an opinion editor at Guangzhou-based Time Weekly, who was put on involuntary leave after running a special report on "100 Influential People to China's Progress" that included milk safety activist Zhao Lianhai - was officially notified she had been sacked, she said on Twitter yesterday.

Ran Yunfei, by R. MacKinnon @ Flickr.com

Another huge threat is Sichuan writer and blogger Ran Yunfei. This poor sod is a major subversive. He actually had the nerve to criticize the authorities for prosecuting those who blamed corrupt officials for the deaths of thousands of children in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake! Imagine that? Here's what the scoundrel wrote back in 2009:

"In striking against those who criticize the government with subversion...they think that would block people's determination to fight for freedom, but that's just underestimating people's resolve to protect their own rights."

The charge of inciting subversion was also used to jail Liu Xiaobo, winner of last year's Nobel peace prize. Pity China for being plagued with such enemies. "Dissident" has become a coveted label, something to be worn with pride.

Then there's the case of the Ai Weiwei, probably the most famous international Chinese artist. He helped design the "Bird Nest" Stadium for Beijing's 2008 Olympics, which he then disowned while calling for a boycott. More recently he exhibited 100 million hand painted porcelain Sunflower Seeds at the Tate Modern in London. In China, he has been harassed, beaten and prevented from working. What's a poor guy to do? Get out. Weiwei has just announced plans to set up a studio in Berlin to showcase his work.

"Most of my activities have been in Europe and I cannot really show my work in China... It's very discouraging what's happening here and if I want to continue to develop my work, I have to find a base. But I will stay in Beijing unless the situation is an absolute threat to my life."

The PBS program Frontline just ran this brief documentary, Who's Afraid of Ai Weiwei, a few nights ago: