Chinese artist Ai Weiwei (艾未未) yesterday chided Western leaders for putting trade relationships with Beijing ahead of their commitment to human rights, on the eve of a visit by Britain’s prime minister.
Ai, 53, one of China’s most famous and controversial artists, was put under house arrest at the weekend as police prevented him from attending an event at his new Shanghai studio which is set for demolition.
He also is an outspoken critic of the country’s communist rulers and urged British Prime Minister David Cameron not to mince words with the leadership in Beijing when he arrives today for a two-day visit.
Western leaders “must insist on human rights issues, that it is inadmissible for citizens to be imprisoned because they think differently,” Ai said in a telephone interview.
“We want to hear them bring up these issues, see their lips move,” he said.
“I don’t know how the British prime minister will react, but in varying degrees, the American, French and German leaders betrayed the values which are most treasured by humanity,” Ai said.
The US, France and Germany have led calls for the release of jailed Chinese Nobel peace laureate Liu Xiaobo (劉曉波), but when officials or politicians come to China, their voices are more muted.
US President Barack Obama spoke about his belief in “universal rights” when he visited China a year ago, but activists said he did not go far enough.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy did not speak publicly about rights issues during an April visit, and Chinese President Hu Jintao’s (胡錦濤) visit to France last week resulted in more than US$20 billion in contracts for French firms.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s visit to China in July saw the world’s top two exporting nations sign a series of deals reportedly worth several billion dollars. She publicly raised the issue of greater market openness — but not rights questions.
“The Americans or Europeans that trade with China are in fact trading with a group of people who turn their backs on the most fundamental values,” said Ai, who currently has an exhibition at London’s Tate Modern.
In a commentary published in the UK newspaper the Guardian, Ai wrote: “Cameron should say that the civilized world cannot see China as a civilized country if it doesn’t change its own behavior.”
Ai’s house arrest came amid a widespread crackdown on dissidents, lawyers and professors after Liu was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize last month.
While the artist was not allowed to leave his home over the weekend, others including reporters were able to visit him.
“My house arrest was supposed to last until midnight last night. In fact, the police left at about 11:00pm,” Ai said.
Ai had planned a feast for supporters at his Shanghai studio on Sunday as an ironic celebration of a decision by authorities to demolish the building — despite having originally asked him to build it.
Supporters said on Twitter that hundreds had shown up at the studio.
Ai said the order came after he became increasingly critical of Shanghai’s policies, writing in -particular about activist Feng Zhenghu (馮正虎), who was blocked from returning home from Japan for months.
In a telephone interview on Sunday, Ai branded the nation’s government a “dictatorship” and said the Internet would bring the current communist regime to an end.
“This society is not efficient, it’s inhuman in many ways politically. The government, the whole system ... sacrifices education, environmental resources and most people’s interests just to make a few people become extremely rich only because they are associated with the government,” the artist said.
“The Internet is the best gift to China — this kind of technology will end this kind of dictatorship,” Ai said.
The pitch is a classic: A young celebrity with no climbing experience spends a year in hard training and scales Mount Everest, succeeding against some — if not all — odds. French YouTuber Ines Benazzouz, known as Inoxtag, brought the story to life with a two-hour-plus documentary about his year preparing for the ultimate challenge. The film, titled Kaizen, proved a smash hit on its release last weekend. Young fans queued around the block to get into a preview screening in Paris, with Inoxtag’s management on Monday saying the film had smashed the box office record for a special cinema
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
‘DISAPPEARED COMPLETELY’: The melting of thousands of glaciers is a major threat to people in the landlocked region that already suffers from a water shortage Near a wooden hut high up in the Kyrgyz mountains, scientist Gulbara Omorova walked to a pile of gray rocks, reminiscing how the same spot was a glacier just a few years ago. At an altitude of 4,000m, the 35-year-old researcher is surrounded by the giant peaks of the towering Tian Shan range that also stretches into China, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. The area is home to thousands of glaciers that are melting at an alarming rate in Central Asia, already hard-hit by climate change. A glaciologist, Omarova is recording that process — worried about the future. She hiked six hours to get to
The number of people in Japan aged 100 or older has hit a record high of more than 95,000, almost 90 percent of whom are women, government data showed yesterday. The figures further highlight the slow-burning demographic crisis gripping the world’s fourth-biggest economy as its population ages and shrinks. As of Sept. 1, Japan had 95,119 centenarians, up 2,980 year-on-year, with 83,958 of them women and 11,161 men, the Japanese Ministry of Health said in a statement. On Sunday, separate government data showed that the number of over-65s has hit a record high of 36.25 million, accounting for 29.3 percent of