Last week, Chinese authorities stopped prominent architect and artist Ai Weiwei in Beijing from boarding a flight to Hong Kong and immediately took him into custody. The wife and nephew of the outspoken critic of the regime were briefly detained as were members of his staff. A few days later, on Wednesday, officials for the first time confirmed they were holding Ai when they stated the 53-year-old was being investigated for “economic crimes.”
On Thursday, the Foreign Ministry lashed out at the growing number of foreign capitals calling on Beijing to release Ai. “Other countries have no right to interfere,” said Hong Lei, a ministry spokesman.
The last thing the Communist Party wants is for other nations to get involved in this particular jailing. Although China each year incarcerates hundreds of full-time dissidents — as well as thousands of peasants, workers, students, retirees and homemakers voicing discontent — Ai’s case is special because it signals the desperation of officials. In short, the nabbing of Ai Weiwei may begin the final chapter in the turbulent history of the People’s Republic of China.
Virtually every China watcher will tell you that three decades of economic growth has strengthened the grip of the Communist Party. They’re wrong, however. Since the beginning of the so-called reform era in late 1978, China’s leading political organization has become increasingly isolated from the country’s ever-changing populace.
Once clothed in faded totalitarian garb and regimented into submission, the Chinese people are now the most individualistic and dynamic folk on earth. As Time’s Hannah Beech has written, they are making their “kinetic dash into the future.” The ongoing transformation is shaking China, especially its one-party state. The Chinese people, for the first time in two decades, are finding their voice, becoming self-aware, assertive and sometimes defiant.
Often defiant, in fact. In 2009, there were 230,000 protests in China according to one report. That’s way up from 127,000 in 2008 and the 80,000 to 90,000 a year during the earlier part of last decade.
The increasing incidence of protest can be chalked up to many trends, but the most important of them is the growing confidence of the Chinese people. Just before the Beijing Olympics, I was talking with a prominent businessman in his spacious office in a Shanghai skyscraper, and he acknowledged how much China had changed in the last 20 years. “No one fears the government any more,” he said with a broad smile.
The Chinese government, although it tries to be more coercive, is losing its ability to intimidate. We should not be surprised because a modernizing China is following the patterns evident in France in the 18th century, Confucian South Korea two decades ago, Chinese-dominated Taiwan a little later and Egypt this year.
And this is where Ai Weiwei comes in. Son of a Communist Party icon, he is best known for helping to design the Bird’s Nest stadium for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Ai then turned himself into an icon in his own right, a critic of the government. For this, he was beaten in 2009, lost his blog that year, placed under house arrest in 2010 and prevented from leaving the country last December. His brand-new Shanghai studio was demolished in January in unofficial retaliation for outspokenness. Now, he will surely be jailed for a long time on one pretext or another.
Ai’s disappearance comes during the party’s most repressive campaign in two decades. There are not only more jailings (over the last six weeks there have been hundreds of detentions according to Nicholas Bequelin of Human Rights Watch), this time the regime is increasingly relying on thuggish extra-legal tactics. They are imposing substantially harsher penalties and going after a broader range of individuals. Beijing last month even admitted to its brutish methods. Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Jiang Yu, referring to people who “want to make trouble in China,” said “no law can protect them.”
But no repression can protect the party. Ai’s disappearance has triggered online petitions and unprecedented discussion in China. Abroad, he is now known as the conscience of China. Once a nuisance to the regime, he has become a symbol of defiance, perhaps an enduring one.
In the short term, the government’s repression may scare citizens. In the long term, Ai’s jailing has further delegitimized the Communist Party. The organization’s main problem is that many, if not most, Chinese think that a one-party system is not appropriate for a modern China. Now, the country’s people have a symbol to fight for, a Chinese icon in jail.
On Thursday, the Foreign Ministry lashed out at the growing number of foreign capitals calling on Beijing to release Ai. “Other countries have no right to interfere,” said Hong Lei, a ministry spokesman.
The last thing the Communist Party wants is for other nations to get involved in this particular jailing. Although China each year incarcerates hundreds of full-time dissidents — as well as thousands of peasants, workers, students, retirees and homemakers voicing discontent — Ai’s case is special because it signals the desperation of officials. In short, the nabbing of Ai Weiwei may begin the final chapter in the turbulent history of the People’s Republic of China.
Virtually every China watcher will tell you that three decades of economic growth has strengthened the grip of the Communist Party. They’re wrong, however. Since the beginning of the so-called reform era in late 1978, China’s leading political organization has become increasingly isolated from the country’s ever-changing populace.
Once clothed in faded totalitarian garb and regimented into submission, the Chinese people are now the most individualistic and dynamic folk on earth. As Time’s Hannah Beech has written, they are making their “kinetic dash into the future.” The ongoing transformation is shaking China, especially its one-party state. The Chinese people, for the first time in two decades, are finding their voice, becoming self-aware, assertive and sometimes defiant.
Often defiant, in fact. In 2009, there were 230,000 protests in China according to one report. That’s way up from 127,000 in 2008 and the 80,000 to 90,000 a year during the earlier part of last decade.
The increasing incidence of protest can be chalked up to many trends, but the most important of them is the growing confidence of the Chinese people. Just before the Beijing Olympics, I was talking with a prominent businessman in his spacious office in a Shanghai skyscraper, and he acknowledged how much China had changed in the last 20 years. “No one fears the government any more,” he said with a broad smile.
The Chinese government, although it tries to be more coercive, is losing its ability to intimidate. We should not be surprised because a modernizing China is following the patterns evident in France in the 18th century, Confucian South Korea two decades ago, Chinese-dominated Taiwan a little later and Egypt this year.
And this is where Ai Weiwei comes in. Son of a Communist Party icon, he is best known for helping to design the Bird’s Nest stadium for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Ai then turned himself into an icon in his own right, a critic of the government. For this, he was beaten in 2009, lost his blog that year, placed under house arrest in 2010 and prevented from leaving the country last December. His brand-new Shanghai studio was demolished in January in unofficial retaliation for outspokenness. Now, he will surely be jailed for a long time on one pretext or another.
Ai’s disappearance comes during the party’s most repressive campaign in two decades. There are not only more jailings (over the last six weeks there have been hundreds of detentions according to Nicholas Bequelin of Human Rights Watch), this time the regime is increasingly relying on thuggish extra-legal tactics. They are imposing substantially harsher penalties and going after a broader range of individuals. Beijing last month even admitted to its brutish methods. Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Jiang Yu, referring to people who “want to make trouble in China,” said “no law can protect them.”
But no repression can protect the party. Ai’s disappearance has triggered online petitions and unprecedented discussion in China. Abroad, he is now known as the conscience of China. Once a nuisance to the regime, he has become a symbol of defiance, perhaps an enduring one.
In the short term, the government’s repression may scare citizens. In the long term, Ai’s jailing has further delegitimized the Communist Party. The organization’s main problem is that many, if not most, Chinese think that a one-party system is not appropriate for a modern China. Now, the country’s people have a symbol to fight for, a Chinese icon in jail.
