{"id":35794,"date":"2012-04-26T14:17:59","date_gmt":"2012-04-26T13:17:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/?p=35794"},"modified":"2012-08-17T14:48:23","modified_gmt":"2012-08-17T13:48:23","slug":"chinas-ai-wei-wei-arrest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/?p=35794","title":{"rendered":"Ai Wei Wei’s arrest changed China’s political landscape"},"content":{"rendered":"

The artist Ai Weiwei\u2019s outspoken views are gaining currency. Simon Kirby reflects on a change of mood in China as people lose faith in the Party<\/strong><\/p>\n

In June 2011, Ai Weiwei was released from detention to a form of home surveillance. He is confined to the city of Beijing and must inform the authorities of his movements. He may not make public statements nor comment on his detention and the terms of his release (a condition he has already breached); further investigations are pending and a prosecution may be pursued within a year. It is still far from clear what the implications are for Ai as a private individual, let alone for his capacity to continue to work as an artist. Just as he was never formally arrested neither has he been fully freed.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>This shabby story takes place against a backdrop of heightened political sensitivity in China as the country braces itself for transition to a new, as yet unannounced, group of top leaders. This is scheduled to take place next year in the Great Hall of the People during the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party. The Congress will certainly be a rigid spectacle of national purpose and will make numbing television viewing. Not least because it will be impossible not to speculate on the nature of the Byzantine succession struggle which is currently taking place behind firmly locked doors.<\/p>\n

The detention of Ai Weiwei was based on intimidation rather than\u00a0legal process — a pattern that is well established in China. In effect, he was\u00a0kidnapped by the state and never informed which organ of the machinery\u00a0was holding him, nor was he charged with a specific crime. Rather, his\u00a0indictment was based on “confessions”. Even his release was justified on the spurious grounds of cooperative behaviour, willingness to make amends and\u00a0poor physical health. As the threat of re-opening the case against him still\u00a0looms, he is now being blackmailed into falling into line.<\/p>\n

A few weeks after Ai Weiwei was released I had lunch with him. He\u00a0talked frankly about the contradictions of his detention and the absurdity of\u00a0his current position. He clearly intends to continue working and his remarkable personal charisma is undimmed. Yet he is, in my view, a person who is\u00a0also deeply disturbed by what is happening to him.<\/p>\n

Artists and the “Tiananmen contract”<\/h5>\n

Throughout the 90s, Chinese state-controlled capitalism ushered in\u00a0a remarkable economic boom from which the fledgling contemporary art\u00a0scene benefited. Artists, as potentially problematic figures, were heavily\u00a0co-opted with a variety of sticks and carrots — there were rich rewards to be\u00a0had and the freedom to continue making, exhibiting and travelling was\u00a0granted to artists in exchange for creating non-critical work. In many cases,\u00a0artists were understandably tempted to comply. Ever since the fearful events\u00a0of the Tiananmen massacre on 4 June 1989, there has been an enforced\u00a0accommodation between the government and society. I dubbed this the\u00a0“Tiananmen contract”<\/a> in an article for Index on Censorship that was published\u00a0in 2008, ahead of the Chinese Olympics. The deal is that the Communist\u00a0Party would steer the people towards individual prosperity and the country\u00a0to greatness, through ensuring stability. In return, the primacy of the Party\u00a0could never be questioned. Three years ago, the contract was widely supported — \u00a0the level of basic freedom was greater than it had been in 20 years and\u00a0living standards were rising. There was also pride at China\u2019s leading role\u00a0on the world stage. Today, I believe this consensus is much more fragile.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The daily reality for Chinese citizens is that living costs are rising fast\u00a0and incomes are not keeping up. Working conditions for white collar workers\u00a0can be demoralising, while those for migrant manual workers, who continue\u00a0to have even basic rights denied them, are often shockingly exploitative.\u00a0Commuting in the new, high-rise cities can be exhausting and alienating.\u00a0People are deeply sceptical about the capacity of the state to protect them\u00a0from (often deliberately) contaminated food and a toxic living environment,\u00a0criminal scams, corruption in the medical profession and corporate exploitation of consumers. The Party is widely understood to be at the centre of\u00a0many of these scandals and is often seen to be protecting wrongdoers. Most\u00a0flagrantly, the new super-rich live effectively beyond the reach of the law,\u00a0while ordinary people can in no way count on basic social justice for themselves and their families.<\/p>\n

There are attempts to address these problems through draconian anticorruption campaigns which make examples of officials accused of vice and\u00a0graft. There are also strenuous efforts to reform social and fiscal legislation and\u00a0to professionalise the legal system. This year\u2019s 90th anniversary celebrations of\u00a0the founding of the Chinese Communist Party saw an outpouring of congratulatory media stories featuring joyful ethnic minorities, good comrades and citizens and glorious historical deeds. Meanwhile Tiananmen Square, which\u00a0is the heart of the great people\u2019s revolution, was firmly sealed and off limits.<\/p>\n

In March, I had dinner in a noisy Korean barbecue restaurant in Beijing\u00a0with a favourite Chinese artist. Only 32 years old, he already enjoys a successful international career, is profoundly patriotic and the holder of an important\u00a0teaching post. During the evening, my friend passionately expounded an\u00a0opinion in full earshot of fellow diners and waiting staff that would have made\u00a0me extremely uncomfortable even five years ago. Namely, that the Chinese Communist Party in 2011 is more fundamentally corrupt than even Chiang\u00a0Kai-shek\u2019s Kuomintang (KMT or Nationalist Party) of the 40s. The official history, tirelessly propagated in films and TV dramas, is that that the nationalist\u00a0administration had degenerated into a kind of murderous gangsterism before\u00a0the 1949 revolution. Yet my artist friend argued that pre-revolutionary society in many ways remained, for all its faults, a pluralistic one: an imperfect\u00a0democracy. There was at least formal acknowledgment of the independence\u00a0of the judiciary and channels to seek redress from injustice. The Communist\u00a0Party of the 21st century, on the other hand, retains its monopoly on power\u00a0through intimidation and force. It is deeply complicit in land grabs, forced\u00a0evictions, endemic bribery and corruption. It even facilitates the enrichment\u00a0of favoured businesses through official contracts and privileged access to\u00a0resources and markets.<\/p>\n

A new trend for speaking out<\/h5>\n

The legal system today, my friend told me, is explicitly in place in order\u00a0to serve the interests of the Party above anything else. Citizens who attempt\u00a0to petition the government to redress flagrant social wrongs can expect to\u00a0be met at best with official obstruction. In many documented cases they will\u00a0encounter thuggish intimidation and violence. This viewpoint is not unusual.\u00a0In a way that is entirely characteristic of China, I then went on to hear the\u00a0same, previously unimaginable, opinion expressed by three other, unrelated\u00a0people within the course of as many weeks. If during the course of conversation with people in China, one digs just a little, it\u2019s possible to encounter a\u00a0profound and worrying cynicism in the integrity of the Chinese state.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>It seems that suddenly these views are being expressed loudly and in\u00a0public. Ai Weiwei, on the other hand, has been consistently and persistently\u00a0making his views known. His father, Ai Qing, was one of China\u2019s most eminent poets, but was a political prisoner for 16 years in the western desert\u00a0region of Xinjiang. This is where Ai Weiwei spent his entire childhood and\u00a0early adolescence. When Ai Weiwei returned to China in 1993 after ten years\u00a0in the United States, his rehabilitated father advised him on his responsibility as a Chinese citizen to speak out, reportedly saying, “You are at home\u00a0here, there\u2019s no need to be polite.”<\/p>\n

An intriguingly enigmatic artist, Ai Weiwei\u2019s public personality is also\u00a0complex and elusive. The true Ai Weiwei may well be a nuanced combination of the many faults of which his detractors accuse him. However, it\u00a0has also now become clear, even to his harshest critics, that this artist has\u00a0courageously maintained a highly principled position for which he is now\u00a0paying a heavy price. It is my observation that many others are beginning\u00a0to come round to his point of view.\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

This article appears in the “Art Issue” of Index on Censorship.\u00a0Click on here<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>for subscription options\u00a0and more.<\/em><\/p>\n

Simon Kirby is the director of Chambers Fine Art in Beijing<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

This issue is nominated for an Amnesty Award<\/a><\/em><\/h1>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The artist Ai Weiwei\u2019s outspoken views are gaining currency. Simon Kirby<\/strong>reflects on a change of mood in China as people lose faith in the Party<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[4061],"tags":[327,102,3669,7364,1303,210,4595,3849],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35794"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/99"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35794"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35794\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39099,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35794\/revisions\/39099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}