The Chinese artist behind Beijing's spectacular new Olympic stadium has said he wants nothing to do with the propaganda for which it will be used during next year's games.
In an attack on the "disgusting" political conditions in the one-party state, Ai Weiwei (
"I would rather be disconnected or forgotten," said Ai, one of China's most prominent figures in the arts.
He conceived the stadium's steel-lattice design -- nicknamed the bird's nest -- with Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron.
"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. It is not good for anyone."
He accused those choreographing the opening ceremony on Aug. 8 next year -- including filmmakers Steven Spielberg and Zhang Yimou (
"All the shitty directors in the world are involved. It's disgusting," Ai said. "I don't like anyone who shamelessly abuses their profession, who makes no moral judgment. It is mindless."
Recently, a Spielberg spokesman hinted the director might relinquish his Olympic role unless China dropped its opposition at the UN to an increased Darfur peacekeeping force; four days later, a deal on the force was announced in New York.
Although Ai's work, too, will be used as the stage for the Olympics' opening ceremony, he has no regrets.
"The joy of design is already there. The rest is rubbish," he said. "I was not hired by the state but by a design team in Switzerland. No one in the state here would ever hire me for a project like this."
With a family history of persecution by the communist government, Ai's involvement with the Olympic project raised eyebrows from the start. The artist spent much of his childhood in remote Xinjiang after his father, Ai Qing (
Such persecution, along with political murders, corruption and rampant land theft, remain taboo subjects in China. Ai is one of only a few prominent people living in Beijing to speak out.
"I very openly criticize the tendency to use culture for the purpose of propaganda, to dismiss the true function of art and the intellect," he said.
Ai's contemporary, Zhang -- whose family also had troubled times under the communists -- has been criticized at various points in his career by both the authorities and their opponents.
As for Spielberg, when he announced in April last year that he had been hired as a consultant on the opening and closing ceremonies for the Olympics, he said his overriding goal was "to give the world a taste of peace, friendship and understanding."
In recent months he has elaborated on his motives, after being criticized in the US for his involvement with Beijing when the government there stands accused of aiding Sudan's regime, despite the latter's promoting a genocide in Darfur.
In May, Spielberg set out his moral position on that issue when he published the text of a private letter he had sent to Chinese President Hu Jintao (
"I believe there is no greater crime against humanity than genocide. I feel strongly that every member of the world community has a moral and ethical responsibility to act to prevent such crimes," he said.
Spielberg said he hoped all sovereign nations "will work creatively to coexist with great peace and lasting prosperity and that they will treat their citizens with dignity and respect."
Ai dismissed concerns about repercussions from expressing his views.
"It is not opposition to the state, but rather in fighting for individualism and freedom of expression, freedom of human rights and justice ... If you read newspapers today you see the problems created by this structure and by the effort to maintain power. It is against everything that human society should be fighting for," he said.
China’s supreme objective in a war across the Taiwan Strait is to incorporate Taiwan as a province of the People’s Republic. It follows, therefore, that international recognition of Taiwan’s de jure independence is a consummation that China’s leaders devoutly wish to avoid. By the same token, an American strategy to deny China that objective would complicate Beijing’s calculus and deter large-scale hostilities. For decades, China has cautioned “independence means war.” The opposite is also true: “war means independence.” A comprehensive strategy of denial would guarantee an outcome of de jure independence for Taiwan in the event of Chinese invasion or
A recent Taipei Times editorial (“A targeted bilingual policy,” March 12, page 8) questioned how the Ministry of Education can justify spending NT$151 million (US$4.74 million) when the spotlighted achievements are English speech competitions and campus tours. It is a fair question, but it focuses on the wrong issue. The problem is not last year’s outcomes failing to meet the bilingual education vision; the issue is that the ministry has abandoned the program that originally justified such a large expenditure. In the early years of Bilingual 2030, the ministry’s K-12 Administration promoted the Bilingual Instruction in Select Domains Program (部分領域課程雙語教學實施計畫).
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) earlier this month said it is necessary for her to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and it would be a “huge boost” to the party’s local election results in November, but many KMT members have expressed different opinions, indicating a struggle between different groups in the party. Since Cheng was elected as party chairwoman in October last year, she has repeatedly expressed support for increased exchanges with China, saying that it would bring peace and prosperity to Taiwan, and that a meeting with Xi in Beijing takes priority over meeting
Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs spokesman for maritime affairs Rogelio Villanueva on Monday said that Manila’s claims in the South China Sea are backed by international law. Villanueva was responding to a social media post by the Chinese embassy alleging that a former Philippine ambassador in 1990 had written a letter to a German radio operator stating that the Scarborough Shoal (Huangyan Island, 黃岩島) did not fall within Manila’s territory. “Sovereignty is not merely claimed, it is exercised,” Villanueva said. The Philippines won a landmark case at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in 2016 that found China’s sweeping claim of sovereignty in
RSS