Chinese Police: Detained Chinese Artist And Activist Ai Weiwei Being Investigated For 'Suspected Economic Crimes'

April 7, 2011 4:58:10 AM

By Chris Buckley

BEIJING, April 7 (Reuters) - Chinese police said the detained artist and activist Ai Weiwei is being investigated for "suspected economic crimes", while his family said on Thursday he was the victim of a political crackdown also decried by the departing U.S. ambassador.

"Police said late Wednesday they are investigating Ai Weiwei for suspected economic crimes in accordance with the law," the official Xinhua news agency said in a brief dispatch issued on Wednesday just before midnight.

The report that Ai may be under police investigation for economic crimes, which could cover charges such as tax evasion, is unlikely to still the uproar his case has sparked, with human rights groups and Western governments calling him a target of China's campaign to stifle dissent.

The burly, bearded Ai (pronounced "eye") had a hand in designing the Bird's Nest stadium for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and has juggled a prominent international art career with colourful campaigns against government censorship and political restrictions, often using the Internet.

Xinhua gave no other details of the allegations against Ai, who was stopped on Sunday from boarding a flight from Beijing to Hong Kong and taken away by border police, sparking condemnation from Western governments and Chinese human rights campaigners.

He has not contacted his family since then.

"The economic crimes report is absurd, because the way he was taken and then disappeared shows it's nothing of the sort," Ai's older sister, Gao Ge, told Reuters by telephone.

"This is more like a crime gang's behaviour than a country with laws," she said.

Outgoing U.S. Ambassador Jon Huntsman, who is leaving his post to consider a run as a Republican presidential contender, joined the fray earlier, another sign the case could fester into a diplomatic row between the world's two biggest economies.

"The United States will never stop supporting human rights," Huntsman said in a speech in Shanghai on Wednesday evening.

Future U.S. ambassadors "will continue to speak up in defence of social activists, like Liu Xiaobo, Chen Guangcheng and now Ai Weiwei, who challenge the Chinese government," said Huntsman, according to a transcript on the website of the U.S. consulate in Shanghai (http://shanghai.usembassy-china.org.cn).

Liu is the jailed dissident who was awarded the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize, prompting outrage from China. Chen is a rural legal campaigner held in house arrest since being released from jail in 2010.

Ai's mother, Gao Ying, rejected the charges of "economic crimes" and said they were being used to stifle his activism.

"If he's not released, this will be the start of a long struggle," she told Reuters by telephone. "But they still haven't notified us why he was taken or where he is."

Ai's campaigning has included voicing support for the Nobel winner Liu and an online campaign to collect the names of children buried in a earthquake in southwest Sichuan province in 2008, many in schools that he and others said were poorly built because of corruption.

Ai was beaten up by police in Sichuan in 2009, when he was trying to testify for Tan Zuoren, a dissident facing trial, and he told his family then that he may face similar punishment one day, said his older sister, Gao Ge.

"He told us he may have to go to jail one day for his activities, and he was very clear that we shouldn't try to meddle and stop him speaking out," she said. "My mother cried."

Police should have given Ai's family written notice of where he is and what form of detention he is in, said Liu Xiaoyan, a Beijing lawyer who said he had given advice to the family.

"The family should have received official notice but hasn't," he told Reuters. "The Xinhua report doesn't have any legal effect. It doesn't mean this is a final charge or anything like that."

"PROVOCATIONS"

On Wednesday, a Chinese newspaper, the Global Times, suggested that Ai had been testing the bounds of official tolerance. On Thursday, the paper issued new criticism of Western condemnation and reporting about the case and suggested that Ai was targeted for his political "provocations."

China, it said, "needs people like Ai Weiwei. But at the same time, it is even more important that Chinese law restrict the provocative behaviour of Ai Weiwei and others."

Since February, the government's ingrained fears of challenges to one-party rule have been magnified by online calls for "Jasmine Revolution" protest gatherings inspired by the political flux across the Middle East and North Africa.

Even feeble efforts to act on those calls were smothered by police, but the threat of protests has triggered an unusually broad crackdown. At least three activists have been arrested on subversion charges often used to jail dissidents.[ID:nL3E7EU14C]

In 2009, a Beijing human rights lawyer, Xu Zhiyong, was detained on suspected tax charges before being released after an uproar at home and abroad about vague economic accusations being used to intimidate human rights activists.

Ai's mother, Gao Ying, said he was unlikely to bow to accusations of economic misdeeds to win a swift release.

"He wouldn't surrender just to escape from their hands quickly," she said. "If he's not given justice, he'll refuse to come out, I think. That's his character." (Reporting by Chris Buckley; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)

Copyright 2011 Thomson Reuters. Click for Restrictions.

Comments

[DAE]

10:51 PM on 04/10/2011

If an American citizen in this country said that they were allied with Al-qaida and supported an Islamist revolution to impose Sharia law in the USA they would be arrested as an enemy combatant and be jailed indefinitely. If a Chinese citizen in China says they are allied with the US and supports a revolution to impose a foreign ideological system in China they are detained, tried and perhaps convicted of subversion. Can you tell me the difference, other than you don't like Islam or Sharia law. Some Americans might think it's a lot better than what we have. I don't think that way, but what the hell, don't they have the right to advocate the overthrow of our system of government. It is a dark system according to some. Bin Laden thinks so. Oh, I forgot he targeted the Twin Towers and 3000 Americans died. Please tell me how many people have died in the world since WWII because of our illegal foreign interventions that continue to this day? Maybe the Chinese consider us terrorists? We seem to like to intervene in other countries either directly or by proxy. I think they have more to fear from us than we from them. Don't you think the US government would love to see a Chinese Gorbachev reverse the Chinese Revolution and install a compliant government to our liking that would do our bidding? It happened in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, no? But that's fine isn't it?

[dbrett480]

12:33 PM on 04/16/2011

You can't be serious, right? There is a massive difference between an organization that deliberately targets civilians in an attempt to make the whole world Islamic and a government that goes to war against such groups. Supporting Al-qaeda means supporting a terrorist group whose sole goal is murder and bombing of civilians. Ai Weiwei is merely speaking up for democratic values that the US also supports.

[DAE]

09:27 PM on 04/10/2011

It's common knowledge that in 1949 11 American Communist Party leaders were tried and convicted under the Smith Act, formally known as the Alien Registration Act of 1940, which made it a crime to advocate the violent overthrow of the Government or to belong to an organization that did. After World War II, Federal prosecutors used it to put on trial native-born political radicals suspected of seeking to subvert American institutions and professions (Wikipedia). The Smith Act is still on the books it has not been repealed. In 1957 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that there was a difference between advocacy of an idea for incitement and the teaching of an idea as a concept. This reversed the conviction of some of the Communists. But it is still illegal in the U.S. to advocate the overthrow of the U.S. government. By this criterion Ai Weiwei and other Chinese dissidents who are calling for a Jasmine Revolution in China are clearly advocating the overthrow of the Chinese government. If they were Americans doing the same in America today they could still be brought up on charges of sedition. So as great advocates of free speech and human rights why hasn't the Smith Act, signed into law in 1940 by President Roosevelt, been repealed?

[Pod-gers]

11:10 AM on 04/10/2011

Ai WenWen, con artist extrodinaire!

After doing some research into this dude I have discovered all is not what the western media is claiming. For example...

1. After the Sizchuan earthquake China listed all the children killed in the quake. Ai WeiWei rushed to Sizchuan, and provided a list of names of children he claimed were killed in the quake, and that the Chinese were ignoring. However, the Chinese police took his claimes and investigated them, only to find out they were false. In fact, Ai had listed children of his female staff who were unmarried and had no children! Can you say FRAUD!

2. Li Xinggang designed the Bird's Nest, NOT Ai WeiWei.

In fact, Ai WeiWei used both of these events to insert himself where he had on interest, and was not a party to. He used these events to "advertize himself"

[DAE]

11:18 PM on 04/09/2011

Few people in this country realize there is an intense inner party struggle going on within the CCP between neo-Maoists (sometimes referred to as "the new left.") and neo-liberal reformers. The neo-liberal reformers are the ideological heirs of Zhao Ziyang the Party chief deposed in 1989 because he was against the Tiananmen crackdown. Zhao's policies, accepted and promoted by Deng Xiaoping, have ruled the roost for 30 years. But in order to carry out their neo-liberal capitalist reforms they had to curry favor with Party hard-liners who would not tolerate any challenge to CCP rule. The human rights dissidents include neo-liberal ideologues who want to dismantle the CCP and install a Western-style multi-party democracy. In 1989 the hard-liners were veteran communists who were not about to concede political power although they acquiesced to the economic reforms. Many neo-Maoists are the literal offspring of the first generation of revolutionaries. These future leaders such as the president-to-be Xi Jinping grew up during the Cultural Revolution and still are imbued with its ideology. They are a portion of the 5th generation of leadership versus neo-liberals educated in the West. The neo-Maoists are pushing for "New Deal" like populist policies to soften the hard edges of capitalist reforms by extending the social safety net. They are more anti-imperialist in their rhetoric and support a strong central government and continued one party rule.

[Pod-gers]

09:14 AM on 04/10/2011

Look what I learned...

That’s another way of saying that Ai bummed around NYC for almost 15 years, doing nothing, but “learning a lot”.

According to the NYT, “He took this ‘knowledge’ with him when he returned to China in 1993.
There is an article available on Ai Weiwei’s almost 15 years in NYC from 1981 to 1994. He was basically a street rat with no purpose in life, despite the elegant way western media try to portray him.

In 1983, he was expelled from a New York design school for chronic absenteeism

He forfeited his visa due to the expulsion, and was an illegal immigrant in the US for much of his stay.

The US government later rewarded him with a permanent Green Card, for his willingness to protest against China.

He was charged with doing construction work without a license

He worked as a “tourist guide” in the 42nd Street Red Light district – apparently earning commissions by acting essentially as a pimp.

He spent two years gambling in Atlantic City; some say he was actually just buying free chips from bus tourists and reselling them.

He also apparently spent several years drawing sidewalk portraits.

In his own words, he spent “every day waiting for darkness to come, then waiting for the night to become bright again. It was always waiting, without any purpose.”

Perhaps Ai WeiWei has "hidden income" and unpaid taxes?

[DAE]

11:36 AM on 04/10/2011

Thanks Pod-gers. My comment was meant to educate whoever may be interested in the behind the scenes political maneuvering going on in China. I'm sure there are elements in the CCP that want to protect Ai because they share his ideological perspective. There is a "Gorbachev" faction in the Party that wants to see more marketization, more privatization and more rapid political democratization. They love to speak about "universal values" which are a code word for Western capitalist values and rampant individualism.The "hard-line" faction wants to maintain Party control and is much more statist. They're behind the push for more social welfare spending, i.e spread the wealth. Ai and others are playthings of the Us State Department to wage ideological war against China, and we have ourir agents within the CCP for sure. The US sees a "Gorbachev" solution to the China problem as a real possibility. A defanged and compliant China that can serve as a dumping ground for US goods is their goal. It's a pipe dream. The CCP has learned its lesson from the fall of the Soviet Union and will not loosen its grip on power.

[iceburg]

07:38 AM on 04/08/2011

No matter how tough the situation is in China, the ccp won't last long. That's for sure.

[Pod-gers]

12:57 PM on 04/08/2011

I wouldn't bank on that.

[zephon]

04:12 PM on 04/08/2011

Many Americans are in denial on the growing strength of China and their government.

That is based on a rational fear that we are no longer the world's superpower and must work with other nations to make progress.

China being the worlds second largest economy and growing rapidly will surpass the USA GDP in the next 20-50 years. A very short time span from my perspective.

Denial is a defense mechanism by such people to shy away from reality. A reality that will soon quash their ethnocentric character of disdain.

[DAE]

10:09 PM on 04/10/2011

Famous last words -- Chiang Kai-shek.

[StrawHat]

01:37 AM on 04/08/2011

"He wouldn't surrender just to escape from their hands quickly," she said. "If he's not given justice, he'll refuse to come out, I think. That's his character."

China needs a billion people with this man's character.

[HanMeiRen]

08:21 PM on 04/08/2011

From what I learn I view Ai Wei Wei as an idealist. I admire him for his courage and his sense of justice.

But the society will not function well when people are all like him, an idealist who fights the cause with all his breath.

‘Life is not fair, deal with it”. Most people “deal with it” by making personal adjustments. The idealists “deal with it” by fighting the system single-mindedly. These people are real game changers, for better or for worse.

The idealists are perfect critics but they may not be perfect executioners. Along the line I would view Mao as an idealist and Deng as a pragmatist.

It is wrong if the CCP is to put Ai Wei Wei behind bars for his dissidence.

[Pod-gers]

10:05 PM on 04/08/2011

Normally China uses house arrest for dissidents. In this case, even Ai admits he was under investigation, then he tried to leave the country.

I do believe if the investigation exonerates him from "finanacial crimes" he will be released.

Since he was singled out and invited to the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony, he has become an "internationl figure," and I would be shocked if the people of China ignored him.

having lived in China, I can assure you there are plenty of Chinese who complain, successfully. It is just not true that no one in China is allowed to complain.

Something else is going on here. Most of these dissidents are totally out of touch with ordinary Chinese people.

[Pod-gers]

12:22 PM on 04/10/2011

My research shows that Ai is no idealist, he is a con artist. See my many other comments on his doings. I would never ever compare Ai with Mao. Mao always put China first, he would never ever align himself with the NED.

take care, Kathy

[sculptor]

11:03 PM on 04/07/2011

Ironically, to some extent, this shows that China is sensitive to our criticism. If they weren't, instead of trying to pretend that he committed an "economic crime," they'd have simply had their typical farce of a one day political show trial and tossed him in prison.

[zephon]

12:28 AM on 04/08/2011

Even more... it is a sign of justice, fairness and rule of law.

[wereeverywhere]

02:52 AM on 04/08/2011

It is a sign of justice, fairness and rule of law to jail dissidents. and ignorance is strength and war is peace.

[sculptor]

02:06 PM on 04/08/2011

But the legal system in the PRC is still a total joke where the accused can't actually defend themselves so in the end it's just a different window dressing.

[iceburg]

10:47 PM on 04/07/2011

It seems as if the Chinese Communist regime will soon assign its secret police abroad to arrest the oversea activists.

[sculptor]

11:09 PM on 04/07/2011

It's happen before with other tiny nations that were already pariahs but I don't think they'd risk their relationship with us by doing this in the US.

[zephon]

11:22 PM on 04/07/2011

If they do they will be following the USA and Israel's precedents - and violating their constitution which states non-interference in foreign governments internal affairs.

[zephon]

10:16 PM on 04/07/2011

To help the Chinese un-knowledgeable out there.... here is a poll from 3/31/11 from PEW on Chinese Democracy where you will find the high opinion polls again for the Chinese of their government still just under 90% approval rating.

And an explanation why the USA push for a revolution in China is short sighted.

Furthermore recent polls also suggest that the Chinese people believe they have a democracy already. Though their idea of a democracy is quite different from that of Americans. Such differences of opinion on what democracy is are rooted in their culture and history.

My personal belief is the majority of Americans are still rooted in Cold War mentality of Communism in China built upon hate and lies of the USA propaganda machines.

Hopefully a few can become more enlightened.

http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1945/chinese-may-not-be-ready-for-revolution

http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1945/chinese-may-not-be-ready-for-revolution

[Pod-gers]

01:02 PM on 04/08/2011

Yep. many people wallow in their laten racism as well as their ignorance of McCarthyism.

[zephon]

09:28 PM on 04/07/2011

From Congressional Report on China's political system. While with errors ... there is some insight that is rare for America's view of Chinese politics:

"the Chinese government began experimenting with limited village elections in the 1980s and has continued to allow some form of local elections to this day. Under the reforms, local officials were to be selected by secret ballots and universal suffrage among the adult population of the community, with competing candidates who may or may not be Party members"

"China’s political reforms have not been limited to experiments with democratic local elections.
Among other changes, the PRC leadership has implemented the following:
• term limits for top-level positions in the Party and government;
• unofficial retirement age requirements for Party cadres at senior levels of
leadership;
• regular rotation of provincial and military leaders;
• equal representation and voting status for each province on the CCP Central
Committee;
• “decisions by votes” (piaojuezhi); and
• multiple-candidate choices for some Party and governmental seats.33
More recently, the Party has implemented changes in the selection of senior party officials that
purportedly introduce limited competition.34 Referred to as “intra-Party democracy” (dangnei
minzhu), the system operates by allowing more candidates than there are open positions (in
Chinese, this is called cha’e xuanju). Like local elections, intra-Party democracy is seen as a
means of solidifying the legitimacy of the CCP, providing for “checks and balances”

from:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R41007.pdf

[StrawHat]

09:50 PM on 04/07/2011

Table scraps.

[zephon]

10:32 PM on 04/07/2011

But facts and truth.

Something you have had a problem with.

[Pod-gers]

01:03 PM on 04/08/2011

Why do you have a problem giving credit where credit is due Whenever someone ignors the good and only flaunts the bad, I must question their motivation.

[Steelsil]

09:25 PM on 04/07/2011

China is still run by the Chinese Communist Party, the same people who committed the Tiananmen Massacre and the invasion of Tibet.  It is an absolute dictatorship with no internal restraint on the exercise of government power.  People disappear for reasons as small as complaining about corrupt officials taking bribes for building schools that crumble in earthquakes.  Don't buy the PR campaign.  These people are murderous thugs.

[zephon]

09:44 PM on 04/07/2011

And America is still run on the same system that committed the Kent State massacres, the Chicago Convention fiasco.... people disappear in America every day.

Unless you are White, Rich, Famous you might as well be forgotten. People disappear with American government forces at work all the time through the abuse of American government powers through systems like extraordinary rendition, frequently taken to foreign countries to be tortured without any due process of law.

Best Americans clean up their act and stop acting hypocritical.

[NicoloM]

10:35 PM on 04/07/2011

China is still run by its wealthy "THROUGH" the Chinese Communist Party.
(search for Forbes list of ten mainland china billionaires-- if communal is a economy of sharing, it only has ten members in China)

[zephon]

10:55 PM on 04/07/2011

Hu made this the most specific point of the most recent Chinese Congress.

The capitalistic revolution has not benefited many of the masses in China and more work is needed to make sure that these benefits are spread throughout the population.

But with a population the size of China nearly 5 times the size of the USA things take time ... I trust the Chinese leaders will address these inequities, like they have by raising interest rates 4 times this year already to help combat this problem.

[Pod-gers]

01:08 PM on 04/08/2011

These billionairs were NOT at the time of 1989. Communal sharing ended with the rehabilitation of Deng Shao Ping, Nixon's boy.

It seems you are rooted in beliefs about China from long ago, when we supported the infamous Green Gang master, "Cash My Check," who finally "escaped" to Taiwan, where he committed a massacre, while we looked the other way, because the people there didn't want him either.

[zephon]

08:07 PM on 04/07/2011

When America supported and trained terrorists to infiltrate China at Camp Hale in Coloraod in the failed CIA operation ST Circus we set our fate with China to never be trusted and allowed to interfere in Chinese affairs again.

Add this to the ransacking of the Chinese cultural artifacts by Americans around the Boxer revolution and support for Imperialists in the forced consumption of Opium on the Chinese people and taking of Chinese lands as concessions of war .... and finishing it off with letting General Ishii's unit 731 for massive human experimentation on live Chinese subjects for medical/war experiments...

No wonder the Chinese have a disdain for American interference in their internal affairs.

Obviously America has not learned the lesson of it's own past transgressions in human rights in China.

[wereeverywhere]

08:42 PM on 04/07/2011

Obviously you have no appreciation for dissidents or a strategy to help them. Your calls for people to share your attitude of denial, to be generous, are unhelpful.

Nice try at absurd deflection with the CIA reference- this pertains to Weiwei how exactly? Is he responsible for what transpired in Colorado??

[zephon]

09:11 PM on 04/07/2011

I have an appreciation for cultural relativism and history.

It is such a sham for Americans to claim the high ground on human rights when we not only have the largest per capita prison population in the world and a long record of human rights abuses of Chinese and China.

And it neither started or ended with CIA operations supporting terrorists in China.

[StrawHat]

09:29 PM on 04/07/2011

It's like trying to discuss the crimes of Scientology with a true believer. They'll bring up the errors, crimes and excesses of the Catholic Church, or the psychiatric profession, digging back decades -- even centuries -- for examples. It's as if they think that saying, "See, the Spanish Inquisition was terrible!" will somehow make thwacking teenagers with million-year service contracts OK and sane.

[iceburg]

07:51 PM on 04/07/2011

One can see a shocking resemblance by comparing the tough political situation in China now with that during the last years of the Cultural Revolution. That means, the communist regime is going to die within two years. No wonder the regime has lost all its self-confidence. I bet none of its top leaders is able to sleep at night.

[StrawHat]

08:12 PM on 04/07/2011

Talking with their minions is like talking with the paranoid and fearful minions of any religious cult on the edge of a melt-down, that's for sure.

[zephon]

09:18 PM on 04/07/2011

Sounds like you are a classic case of psychological projection.

A very poor choice of a defense mechanism to cover your faults.

[zephon]

08:49 PM on 04/07/2011

I bet they leaders of China do worry allot at night.

They worry about inflation. They worry about bringing prosperity to all Chinese.

As good leaders of their people they have these and many other responsibilities.

And as proven good leaders to the people of China - the people of China overwhelmingly support their politicians with the highest approval rating of any government in the world by it's citizens.

[StrawHat]

09:51 PM on 04/07/2011

Translation: We're good leaders of the people, because...because...because we say so.

[zephon]

07:29 PM on 04/07/2011

Time for Americans work on the travesty of human rights here in America and lead by example.

Time for Americans to remember the Opium Wars and the Boxer Revolution and how we forgave all the inhumane acts by foreign nations on the Chinese.... including our own Chinese Exclusion Acts and laws part of Americans history of discrimination on people of color that continue to this very day.

If we can show other that it is indeed a better way they will follow.

[wereeverywhere]

05:50 PM on 04/07/2011

Here's a source perhaps more reputable than the rumors and talking points of CCP apologists are spreading:

The Chinese government should immediately release the artist and outspoken critic Ai Weiwei and end its arbitrary crackdown on dissent, Human Rights Watch said today. Ai was arrested at Beijing airport on the morning of April 2, 2011, as he was about to board a flight for Hong Kong. Despite considerable domestic and international attention, the Chinese government has refused to disclose where he is detained or the reasons for his arrest.

Update (April 7): A government spokesperson admitted on April 7 that Ai was under investigation for suspected economic crimes but no legal notification has yet been issued.

Incommunicado arrests are often the prelude to criminal prosecutions, Human Rights Watch said.

"The arrest of Ai Weiwei reflects a new escalation in the current and already severe crackdown," said Sophie Richardson, Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. "Only sustained international pressure can help Ai Weiwei now."

On April 6, in what can be read as the first official acknowledgment of Ai's arrest, a newspaper article in the state-run Global Times announced that Ai would "pay a price" for being an activist and that "the law would not concede" to his criticisms of the government.

...State media were instructed not to report on the case, and all references to Ai Weiwei's arrest were censored on internet and popular micro-blogging services such as Weibo, a Twitter clone.

[wereeverywhere]

06:00 PM on 04/07/2011

Link = Human Rights Watch http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2011/04/06/china-release-artist-and-critic-ai-weiwei

[zephon]

06:23 PM on 04/07/2011

Sustained pressure on China from other nations to free criminals there will only backfire.

Only an ignorant fool would think otherwise.

The Chinese still well remember the tragedy of Foreign interference in their internal affairs.

Hence they have no ear for such rants as yours regarding their internal affairs.

Best the USA lead by example and stop extraordinary renditions, military tribunals and the many wars in other countries, and stop being the largest per capita prison population in the world.

[wereeverywhere]

02:34 AM on 04/08/2011

So you think a principled stand by the respected Human Rights Watch is a rant? Then you'd advise us to remain quiet in the face of injustice? The U.S. has nothing to do with this case; you're simply flailing around for deflection.