Ai Weiwei, whose artistic vision partially inspired the iconic “bird’s nest” stadium, which changed the image of Beijing from a cookie cutter apartment building factory to an emerging world metropolis , has also been known for his vocal opposition to official Chinese strictures on social and political life. At one point he declared that the 2008 Olympics were an exercise in propaganda meant to paper over China’s real problems. In April 2011 he was arrested for 84 days to prevent his possible involvement in what appeared at the time as an emerging Jasmine-like revolution.
More recently, the Chinese authorities slapped him with a 2.4 million tax arrears penalty. Ai Weiwei believes that this is a way of taking him out of any possible political game by associating him with ordinary economic crime, in a manner not unlike that used by the Russian government who “took care” of its critics using similar roundabout techniques.
To Ai Weiwei’s suprise (and quite possible to the of the Chinese authorities), he was promptly helped by no less than 20,000 supporters who have contributed more than $550,000, some of which in the form of paper airplanes folded from 100 yuan bills. http://nyti.ms/vngVsC
Ai Weiwei on his latest troubles with the Chinese authorities