E18: Ai WeiWei - In Conversation with Benedict Rogers

Ai Weiwei is perhaps the world’s best known and internationally celebrated Chinese artist and film maker, and one of the most prominent Chinese dissidents in exile. The son of poet Ai Qing, he was born in China’s far north-western province of Heilongjiang, where his father had been exiled to a labour camp by the Chinese Communist Party during its ‘Anti-Rightist Movement’ in the 1950s. The family were then moved to Xinjiang in 1961, where they lived for 16 years.

He studied animation at the Beijing Film Academy after the Cultural Revolution, and then moved to the United States. In 1993 he returned to China, and helped establish the experimental artists’ Beijing East Village. In 2011 he was arrested at Beijing airport just before he was due to fly to Hong Kong, and detained for 81 days without charge. He was then released on bail but remained under heavy surveillance and was forbidden to travel abroad, until July 2015 when his passport was returned to him and restrictions were lifted. He left China that year to move to Germany, and now lives in Portugal.

Hong Kong Watch is delighted that Ai Weiwei joined us as our guest in this episode of In Conversation With Benedict Rogers, for a discussion that covered the character of the Chinese Communist Party, the international community’s response, the situation in Hong Kong, Taiwan, his new film about the 2019 protest movement, Cockroach and his forthcoming memoir, 1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows, to be published later this year.
On Hong Kong, Ai Weiwei says that the situation “has been dramatically changed – so dramatic that most people won’t even believe what happens in front of them”. He says Hong Kong “will become another city or province in China … just like Shenzhen or Shanghai, with no freedom, no freedom of speech or political rights.”

On the international community’s response, his view is pessimistic. “They treasure Chinese relations more than anything else,” he says. “Look at what the Germans and French [are doing], trying to grab as much business as possible with China. The only words they use are ‘concerned’ or ‘deeply concerned’, and we all know what that means – it means a green light to whatever they want to do. The West has already lost its leverage in competition with China. Different states just grab their own possibilities to benefit themselves.”

Despite this, Ai Weiwei remains committed to defending freedom. “We have to do the right thing, we have our principles and beliefs, and we have to support humanity and basic human rights. If we lose that battle, we will lose everything.”

#HongKongWatch #香港監察

[SO-rqpm]

Thank you both! It's important that everyone keeps discussing the problem to raise wider awareness. The problem is not just about Hng Kong - if Hong Kong falls, next is the west!

[chanhappy]

Thank all the people in HKW who’re fighting for the freedom of Hongkongers!

[wl]

Wish you add Chinese one day 😃it’s easier for Chinese people to understand what you were talking about. Thank you very much