Dissident artist Ai Weiwei says virus has only strengthened China's 'police state'
Ai has been critical
of China's handling of the outbreak, which was first identified in the city of
Wuhan and has since spread to more than 210 countries and territories, infecting
over 2.5 million people. In a recent opinion piece for The Art Newspaper,
he argued that the ruling Communist Party's containment
tactics have proven the "effectiveness of authoritarian rules," while
other countries' inability to control the pandemic has exposed the
"disadvantages and malpractices of free and democratic societies."
Such comments are
consistent with his wider assessment of the Chinese state's far-reaching
powers. Many issues raised by the pandemic, from censorship to surveillance,
are subjects Ai has spent years exploring. In recent weeks, much
has been made of China's alleged efforts to conceal the initial outbreak of the
virus - an allegation Beijing strongly denies.
According to Ai,
China's selective handing of information early on provided a "chance for
the virus to spread." However, understanding China's motivations is as
important to Ai as the alleged cover-up, or the suggestion that the country's
infection numbers and fatalities have been under-reported. "The West's blame
is very superficial," said Ai. "They (in the West) only talk about
China practically -- (that it) doesn't release information. But they never ask,
'Why?'"
As Ai sees it, China
would not function as a state without the "control and manipulation"
of information. "For China,
everything is for political use. And they have a clear reason to give the
numbers they want to, or to limit or to change or distort the so-called
truth," said Ai....
https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/ai-weiwei-coronavirus-pandemic/index.html
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