The Tamesis
Chinese artist Ai Weiwei returned to China last month after a decade in exile in Europe. The three-week trip to Beijing is his first since authorities returned his confiscated passport in 2015, ending years of travel restrictions linked to his political dissent.
Ai Weiwei is world-famous for his criticism of authoritarianism and its cultural consequences (censorship, police brutality, extrajudicial imprisonment), making him a perennial target of the Chinese government. The artist has lived in Germany, the UK and Portugal since leaving China in 2015. He told CNN that he was briefly interrogated at the airport when he returned to China, signaling a possible shift in Beijing’s approach to dealing with high-profile critics. Ai Weiwei later shared photos and videos on Instagram from his three-week stay, during which his 17-year-old son and his 93-year-old mother met.
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“It felt like a phone call that had been disconnected for 10 years suddenly came back on,” Ai Weiwei told CNN about the visit. “The tone, the rhythm, the speed of speech, all returned to their original state.” He added: “What I miss most is speaking Chinese. For immigrants, the biggest loss is not wealth, loneliness, or an unfamiliar lifestyle, but the loss of language communication.”
He told CNN that he did not take any special precautions before boarding the flight to Beijing, but that he was “inspected and interrogated” at the Beijing airport for nearly two hours before being allowed to enter China. “The question is simple: How long do you plan to stay here? Where else do you plan to go?”
Ai Weiwei was detained by Chinese authorities in 2011 on tax evasion charges and spent 81 days in a police detention center, subject to 24/7 surveillance and frequent interrogations—He later described the experience as “the most difficult situation a human being can ever go through.” His prison, a windowless cell less than 170 square feet, was rebuilt into a series of cells called ” sacred (2012). After his release, Ai Weiwei spent four years under house arrest before leaving China in 2015. Formal charges were never brought against him.
promoting his new book in a recent interview Ai Weiwei on censorshipThe artist said he was unsure why China did not interfere with his visit to Beijing. He also shared his belief that China is “on the rise” while Western societies, newly plagued by incidents of censorship of artists, are on the decline.
