Ai Weiwei is the celebrated Chinese artist who gained international fame (and won critical acclaim) for his design of the stadium, nicknamed the The Bird’s Nest, that was the centerpiece of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.
But Chinese authorities must have known they had created a political monster when, instead of using his new-found fame to promote China’s “coming out,” Ai used it to speak out against China’s human rights abuses:
I would rather be disconnected or forgotten… I hate the kind of feeling stirred up by promotion or propaganda… It’s the kind of sentiment when you don’t stick to the facts, but try to make up something, to mislead people away from a true discussion.
(CBC News, August 11, 2007)
I remember well that Ai’s criticism of other artists who were helping China put on a good show was so searing and morally persuasive that it forced director Steven Spielberg to withdraw as an artistic adviser for the Opening Ceremony. As you can well imagine, China’s authoritarian rulers were not pleased with Ai for provoking this public slap in their face.
Yet nothing demonstrated his intent to be a continual thorn in their side quite like the way he wrote on his very popular website about the shoddy construction that caused so many schools to collapse in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. Even worse, he made a mockery of the government’s attempt to squash all public discussion of this national tragedy … and shame by publishing the names of the children who perished.
Well, now come the inevitable reports that, after allowing Ai to thumb his nose at (or give his trademark middle finger to) their efforts to tame his “artistic” civil disobedience for the past two years, Chinese authorities granted his wish to be “disconnected or forgotten” by confiscating dozens of computers from his studio and arresting him on Sunday. Nobody has seen or heard from him since.
I think they detained him for a reason. If they think they have something, it’s certainly a fixed case, an injustice. I think they’ll concoct some things against him.
(Ai’s mother being quoted by the UK Guardian, April 6, 2011)
In fact I remember watching in awe of him and dread for him (in equal measure) when he was featured in a Frontline documentary on PBS just last week. The show led with this provocative and prophetic description:
Who’s Afraid of Ai Weiwei? He’s China’s first global art star who is using his fame to push the boundaries of freedom in that country. But he’s walking a fine line….
(Frontline, PBS, March 29, 2011)
Clearly China is afraid of Ai, and that is why he has been put away. But nobody was more aware of the fine line he was walking than Ai himself, especially with the secret police becoming increasingly aggressive in monitoring his activities in recent weeks:
He felt a premonition that he would be detained. He told me something might happen to him.
(Ai’s wife being quoted by the Associated Press, April 6, 2011)
In any case, this brings me to the deafening silence coming out of the White House about his arrest. For, with all due respect to Libya, China, Bahrain, et al, China is the most open and notorious perpetrator of human rights abuses on the face of the planet. In fact, China is every bit as repressive today as the Soviet Union was 25 years ago.
Now bear in mind that the rap on Republican presidents is that they invariably treat human rights as little more than a political nuisance in international relations; whereas, Democratic ones invariably insist that respect for human rights is a precondition for any country to establish diplomatic relations with the United States.
Therefore, it stands as an ironic juxtaposition that where Republican President Ronald Reagan resolutely championed the cause of political dissidents in the Soviet Union back then, Democratic President Barack Obama is only giving lip service to the “universality of certain rights” in China today.
Indeed, it is instructive that no less a person than the Soviet Union’s most celebrated political dissident, Natan Sharansky, used the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Reagan’s birth earlier this year to thank him for securing his release from Russia’s infamous Gulag Archipelago. I doubt Ai will ever say the same about Obama….