Ai Wei Wei’s hidden footage of the Wuhan crisis – Ian Johnson

 

Ian Johnson

Journalist and academic Ian Johnson reviews a documentary of artist Ai Weiwei with hidden footage of the coronavirus crisis in Wuhan for Plataformamedia. “The public needs to understand that this film is about China,” Weiwei said in a telephone interview with Ian Johnson. “Yes, it is about the coronavirus lockdown, but it is an effort to reflect what ordinary Chinese have experienced.”

Ian Johnson:

In January of this year, the Chinese city of Wuhan became the first in the world to enter a lockdown to combat the coronavirus pandemic. This crucial period remains in many ways a mystery. Few images have escaped the censors’ control.

A new film by Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei has come to help fill some of this missing story. Although he is now living in Europe, Weiwei, working remotely, has directed dozens of volunteers in China to create “Coronation”, a portrait of the draconian lockdown imposed on Wuhan – of a country capable of mobilizing enormous resources, at a very high human cost.

“The public needs to understand that this film is about China,” Weiwei said in a telephone interview. “Yes, it is about the coronavirus lockdown, but it is an effort to reflect what ordinary Chinese have experienced.”

Despite its initial mistakes, China has managed to control the pandemic better than many other countries, having had 4,700 deaths, compared with more than 177,000 in the United States. The Communist Party has done everything it can to suppress expressions of sadness or revolt, but its efforts still have broad public support.

More – including the trailer – at Plataformamedia.

Ian Johnson is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your (online) meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers’ request form.

Are you looking for more strategy experts at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.

Ai Weiwei and the role of politics - interview: Ian Johnson

Ian Johnson

Artist Ai Weiwei and journalist Ian Johnson met in Berlin for a wide-ranging interview after Ai was allowed to leave China again. Ai Weiwei talks about the role of politics in his life, in the New York Review of Books.

Ian Johnson:

Ai Weiwei, journalists often ask you about politics. Are you fed up with these sorts of questions? 

Ai: No, they help me consider issues, because these questions don’t normally occur to me. I am not someone who usually considers such questions. But if there are those questions, I try my to talk about my feelings, my personal feelings. I think contemporary art, or contemporary culture, the most useful part has a relation with considering the current situation. 

Your family was tightly tied up with politics. 

Ai: I grew up in the so-called Mao Zedong Era. Our era was known as one where “politics was the soul.” 

And your father was a famous poet. 

Ai: If you don’t understand politics you are a victim of politics. So he was baffled by everything. But those who participated in politics were even more miserable. For example Hu Feng [the Chinese writer and literary theorist who criticized Mao’s theory of art and was imprisoned for twenty-four years], or a lot of people like that, they basically were drowned and finished. Because this political party does not permit dissent to the extent that you can’t make a sound. It doesn’t allow you to exist. [we switch to English] 

When you’re interviewed, is there an expectation that you’ll say certain things? 

Ai: Yes, there is a very very strong expectation. Sometimes they are more patient to what I’m saying and sometimes they just jump and say, “Oh, how could you do that?” But I’m a person who’s been “in there.” I’ve been beaten, I’ve been locked up. I’ve been under high pressure. But still, I have to really think beyond that. I have to put my personal suffering separate from the larger picture of the nation, of one country with a billion people and even the existing system—what is possible, what is not so possible, all those kinds of issues. It requires a longer discussion on a deeper level. 

What do you think of think of the modernization theory—that when people get to a certain standard of living, when people are no longer just concerned with food or shelter, they start to demand things. We could see that historically in South Korea, or Taiwan, say thirty years ago. Does that have any relevance to China today? 

Ai: It does, very obviously. If you see those young kids, they’re better off than their parents. They’ve been sent to study abroad. They can travel more freely. They get on the internet. They get iPhones and iPads and video games. 

Are the Chinese authorities aware of it? 

Ai: They are aware of it, but I don’t know to what degree, and I don’t know if they have the right measures. To understand the crisis you need a philosophical mind and the system never really had that kind of discussion—like the one we’re having now, and to openly discuss it. To openly discuss it means first you have a balanced view and you get every mind involved, so the solution will be more democratic rather than some authoritarian solution, which will just create more problems. All they care about are results, but life is about more than results. It’s about our involvement, our passive involvement in each individual’s mind, and that’s why we can say we love it or we hate it.

More in the New York Review of Books.

Ian Johnson is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers´ request form.

Are you interested in more experts on politics at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.

Ian Johnson on Xi Jinping´s anti-corruption drive and its effect on foreign companies.

Related articles

• Ai Weiwei comes to London: a profile of the visionary creator, dissident and polymath
• China society 'very fragile,' warns Ai Weiwei

Why I love Beijing - Zhang Lijia

Ai Weiwei via WikipediaCelebrity author Zhang Lijia answers on her weblog the artist Ai Weiwei, who complained in the weekly Newsweek that Beijing was no longer a livable place for him and a "constant nightmare". She disagrees and explains why she loves Beijing.

 I have immense respect for Ai who is an extremely talented artist as well as an extremely courageous man who dares to criticize the authorities. I wish our government were confident enough to tolerate a few eccentrics like Ai, whom I had the pleasure to meet on several occasions. I am sure that Ai, as someone who appreciates the democratic value, wouldn’t mind that others present different views. I love Beijing. I fell in love with the capital back in 1993 when I first came to live. I found the city far more exciting and vibrant than my hometown Nanjing. There’s so much to offer, so many things going on and you always meet interesting people doing interesting things. Ai Weiwei himself is just a fine example. I am surprised that Ai claims that there’s no favorite place for him in the city. Not even his cool spacey house in the art district of Chaochangdi? Usually people carve out their favorite corners even in the bleakest place on earth: you have to make the most out of where you live. My favorite place is my neighborhood Jiuxianqiaocun – Wine God Bridge Village. Despite its name, it is not a particularly poetic place: it’s rather messy; the narrow streets are littered with rubbish; the low-rises red-brick houses are mostly simply constructed and the public toilets on street corners are smelly. A typical migrant workers’ area. Yet, for me, it is authentic, real and lively. I am renting a house here. There are a lot of activities on the street: people cook, wash their babies and socialize outside (well, their homes are too small). They share food when they cook something good and keep an eye on the neighbour’s children. You have to help each other out when life is harsh. Every day I chat and crack jokes with my neighbours, who always lend me a hand when I drag my heavy electric scooter in and out of my house. Joaquin, a friend stayed with me recently, grew up in Latin America. He described the neighborhood like ‘a slum in Venezuela without the violence or danger’.

Zhang Lijia

 More on Zhang Lijia's weblog

Zhang Lijia is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch.

Related articles

• Dealing with identity - Zhang Lijia (chinaspeakersbureau.info)
• 'Beijing Is a Nightmare': Ai Weiwei (newser.com)
• Ai Weiwei's Beijing (andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com)

Ai Weiwei, Hu jia release illustrate switch in China's EU relations

Image via Wikipedia

Premier Wen Jiabao

The release of two famous dissidents in China, Ai Weiwei and Hu Jia, comes - with all their restrictions - at a telling moment: premier Wen Jiabao's visit to Europe. While it remains difficult to connect such diverse events in Chinese politics very clearly, they do not happen without reason. In this case they might illustrate that China is emphasizing its EU relations over those with the US.

During my time as a foreign correspondent in China those high-profile releases seemed to happen more often. I do not have any statistics, but compared to the late 1990s, early this century, there simply seemed to be now less high-profile dissents that could be released. Since I was based in Shanghai, I did not close check the ongoing stream of foreign visitors to Beijing, but I knew that when high-profile dissidents would be released, high-place US visitors were due.

It was often even worse: most of these dissidents were rounded up in the weeks before those US visits to China, as if forces in China were looking for bargaining power ahead of such visits. I knew that when dissents were rounded up, I should look up the itinerary of US dignitaries. It was never hundred percent sure, who would be behind those arrests. Foreign media often blamed 'China' or the central government, but it was as likely a moment for rogue security forces to embarrass their central leadership in an effort to improve their own bargaining position towards the central government.

One thing was sure: this routine never happened when European leaders visited Beijing.

That routine was disrupted as the Hu Jintao crew took over from Jiang Zemin. Only the release of Ai Weiwei and Hu Jia brought back the memories about that practice, from a decade ago. While we will probably never know what is really going on behind the Chinese curtains, it is important to note that Wen Jiabao's visit to Europe triggered this off. Chinese support for the Euro and increased investments into Europe are other elements in this global changed from the US towards Europe.
(Earlier published in the Fons Tuinstra's home).

Related articles

• Chinese artist Ai Weiwei earns rare reprieve from prison (shortformblog.tumblr.com)
• China frees activist Hu Jia, wife says (edition.cnn.com)
• The release of Ai Weiwei (missbamboo.wordpress.com)
• Chinese artist Ai Weiwei free, but silenced (ctv.ca)
• Colleagues of Chinese artist Ai Weiwei also released (ctv.ca)