By ANDREW JACOBS
Published: November 1, 2011
Kyodo News, via Associated Press
The artist Ai Weiwei, left, speaking Tuesday to an official at a local tax bureau in Beijing.
David Gray/Reuters
Police officers and officials about to enter Mr. Ai's Beijing design company in April.
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Mr. Ai and his lawyers have repeatedly denied the accusations against him, claiming the tax case is simply cover for the government’s more chilling aim: to silence a provocateur who has become one of the most persistent and instantly recognizable critics of China’s ruling Communist Party.
“This is ridiculous,” Mr. Ai said in a phone interview on Tuesday. “This is not the way a great power should behave toward its citizens.”
The bill, which far exceeds the $770,000 officials originally cited as unpaid taxes, suggests that the government is continuing its campaign against Mr. Ai, a conceptual artist, architect and documentary filmmaker whose work frequently takes aim at injustice and official corruption in Chinese society.
In April, at the height of government fears that turmoil in the Arab world might spread east, Mr. Ai was seized by the police at Beijing’s international airport just before boarding a flight to Hong Kong and was taken to an undisclosed location.
He re-emerged 81 days later, his hefty figure noticeably reduced and his voice uncharacteristically stilled.
As part of the agreement that led to his release on bail, Mr. Ai reportedly agreed to stay off Twitter and to reject interviews from the news media. He also was forbidden to leave the capital for a year.
It did not take long, however, for Mr. Ai’s initial reticence to fade. In August, he published a caustic essay in Newsweek, and his Twitter postings have become increasingly frequent and incendiary.
“In the battle between creating evil laws and creating good laws, speaking out is golden and silence is death,” read one recent item that he forwarded to his 100,000 followers.
Despite his apparent bravado, Mr. Ai is well aware of the difficulties that await him should the government decide to once again curtail his freedom. He has described his detention as “mental torture,” recounting how he was kept in solitary confinement and watched by a pair of soldiers who stood inches from his face as he slept, showered and used the toilet. The lights, he said, were never turned off.
But during the many hours of questioning by domestic security officials, he said, there was never any talk of unpaid taxes.
His interrogators were only interested in his activism, and whether he had played a role in China’s so-called Jasmine Revolution, the name given to the phantom protests, announced by an overseas Web site, that never materialized.
“All they wanted to talk about was state subversion,” he said.
Several of Mr. Ai’s employees and associates were also detained in April, including the accountant and manager who help run Beijing Fake Cultural Development Ltd., the design company that is at the center of the tax charges.
In recent months both men have been incommunicado, he said, effectively hobbling the work of the company’s defense lawyers.
During a tax bureau hearing last July, officials refused to give the company’s lawyer copies of the documents they said backed up their accusations.
The crux of Mr. Ai’s defense rests on a simple legal precept. Although he has been charged with tax evasion, he is not the legal owner of Beijing Fake Cultural Development, which fabricates much of his work. His wife, Lu Qing, is the owner.
Calls to the Beijing tax bureau were not returned Tuesday, but the legal notice delivered to his studio listed Mr. Ai as the “actual controller,” a title he said did not exist. “The police have told me there is no use arguing against the state,” he said. “If you are right, then the state is wrong and this cannot happen.”
Even as he insists the issue is about principles, not money, Mr. Ai says he is unsure how he would come up with the enormous sum. He said his mother had offered to sell the house left to her by his father, a poet revered by the Communist Party.
Asked what he would do if his defense failed and full payment of the taxes and penalties did not satisfy the government, Mr. Ai paused. “This is my fate,” he said weakly, “and I have to face it.”
“This is ridiculous,” Mr. Ai said in a phone interview on Tuesday. “This is not the way a great power should behave toward its citizens.”
The bill, which far exceeds the $770,000 officials originally cited as unpaid taxes, suggests that the government is continuing its campaign against Mr. Ai, a conceptual artist, architect and documentary filmmaker whose work frequently takes aim at injustice and official corruption in Chinese society.
In April, at the height of government fears that turmoil in the Arab world might spread east, Mr. Ai was seized by the police at Beijing’s international airport just before boarding a flight to Hong Kong and was taken to an undisclosed location.
He re-emerged 81 days later, his hefty figure noticeably reduced and his voice uncharacteristically stilled.
As part of the agreement that led to his release on bail, Mr. Ai reportedly agreed to stay off Twitter and to reject interviews from the news media. He also was forbidden to leave the capital for a year.
It did not take long, however, for Mr. Ai’s initial reticence to fade. In August, he published a caustic essay in Newsweek, and his Twitter postings have become increasingly frequent and incendiary.
“In the battle between creating evil laws and creating good laws, speaking out is golden and silence is death,” read one recent item that he forwarded to his 100,000 followers.
Despite his apparent bravado, Mr. Ai is well aware of the difficulties that await him should the government decide to once again curtail his freedom. He has described his detention as “mental torture,” recounting how he was kept in solitary confinement and watched by a pair of soldiers who stood inches from his face as he slept, showered and used the toilet. The lights, he said, were never turned off.
But during the many hours of questioning by domestic security officials, he said, there was never any talk of unpaid taxes.
His interrogators were only interested in his activism, and whether he had played a role in China’s so-called Jasmine Revolution, the name given to the phantom protests, announced by an overseas Web site, that never materialized.
“All they wanted to talk about was state subversion,” he said.
Several of Mr. Ai’s employees and associates were also detained in April, including the accountant and manager who help run Beijing Fake Cultural Development Ltd., the design company that is at the center of the tax charges.
In recent months both men have been incommunicado, he said, effectively hobbling the work of the company’s defense lawyers.
During a tax bureau hearing last July, officials refused to give the company’s lawyer copies of the documents they said backed up their accusations.
The crux of Mr. Ai’s defense rests on a simple legal precept. Although he has been charged with tax evasion, he is not the legal owner of Beijing Fake Cultural Development, which fabricates much of his work. His wife, Lu Qing, is the owner.
Calls to the Beijing tax bureau were not returned Tuesday, but the legal notice delivered to his studio listed Mr. Ai as the “actual controller,” a title he said did not exist. “The police have told me there is no use arguing against the state,” he said. “If you are right, then the state is wrong and this cannot happen.”
Even as he insists the issue is about principles, not money, Mr. Ai says he is unsure how he would come up with the enormous sum. He said his mother had offered to sell the house left to her by his father, a poet revered by the Communist Party.
Asked what he would do if his defense failed and full payment of the taxes and penalties did not satisfy the government, Mr. Ai paused. “This is my fate,” he said weakly, “and I have to face it.”
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