“Were you afraid to go back to China?” No’: Ai Weiwei on AI, Western Censorship, and Repatriation | Ai Weiwei

AWeiwei talked to me about his decision-making process before his first visit to China in more than a decade. The artist, known around the world as the most famous critic of the Chinese Communist regime, had to do some math before deciding to return to his homeland.

Before boarding the plane with his son, who had never met the artist’s elderly mother, Ai recalled his time in detention when his captors told him he would spend the next thirteen years in prison on trumped-up charges: “They said: When you get out, your son won’t recognize you.” That was very heavy and it was the only moment that really affected me.

He ended up spending several months in captivity. His son Lau is now 17 years old. Ai says that Lao doesn’t really need his guidance anymore, so he decides to book their flights and roll the dice. “People said, ‘Are you afraid?’” I said: No, why should I be afraid? I am Chinese. I have a Chinese passport. I have the right to go back and see my mother. So I came back.”

Welcome to Ai Weiwei’s life. For most people, returning home does not involve weighing up the risks of seeing close family members again, but that is the reality for a 68-year-old whose entire existence has been shaped by tyranny and the struggle against it.

His trip to China went well. He ended up being interviewed at the airport, then released a few hours later into a country whose smells, sights and sounds were soothing to him. Ai described the trip as “a suddenly redialed phone call.” Today, he’s more poetic, describing it as “a broken piece of jade that you can put back together again because it matches so well. It’s all so familiar: the light, the temperature, the people.”

He will meet PI at his publisher’s offices in London to talk about his new book On Censorship, a 90-page polemic about the nature of state control, artificial intelligence and surveillance. The guy sure knows about these things. Born in Beijing in 1957, he grew up in labor camps in northwest China after his father, the poet I Ching, was exiled. In 2011, he was detained for 81 days in a windowless, 170-square-foot prison for his private activism. Upon his release, he was tracked, interrogated, and threatened by the Chinese state; Then his passport was returned in 2015 and he began his life in exile. He currently divides his time between Lisbon, Berlin and Cambridge.

His artwork is as interesting as his backstory. An army of 1,600 Chinese craftsmen created 100 million hand-painted ceramic “seeds” that were scattered on the floor of the Turbine Hall of the Tate Modern gallery in London 16 years ago. He covered the Konzerthaus building in Berlin with 14,000 orange life jackets worn by refugees. He produced a film dedicated to the children who died in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. This direct challenge to the official state narrative made him “the most dangerous person in China.”

His next work, at Aviva Studios in Manchester, involves 30 tonnes of buttons, salvaged from a London factory that was closing and smuggled to China to be turned into massive hanging works of art by artisans.

The book is a fascinating read, as it argues that those in the West misunderstand the nature of censorship. He defines it as “the exercise of power over intellectual space,” and both are “an indispensable tool of mental enslavement and an essential source of political corruption.” He warns that this is not limited to authoritarian regimes. Liberal societies believe that censorship is rare, “but people forget that even on sunny days, the shadows are inevitable.”

Some of the arguments are confusing. In a section on the limitations of AI, the artist points to a selfie he took with AfD leader Alice Weidel in 2018. He says the AI ​​decided that the photo, which is real, must be fake because the couple appeared to be on opposite ends of the political spectrum. At the time of the photo, Weidel, whose grandfather was a Nazi, was considered to be from the far-right party’s more moderate wing, but since becoming leader he has called for a “large-scale repatriation” of foreigners, saying the country’s focus on the Holocaust resembled a “cult of guilt.”

Does Ai regret the selfie? He told me that her political demands “may be wrong” on many issues, but she is still “more rational than other political opponents in Germany.” What about her anti-immigrant rhetoric, isn’t that anathema to him? “Some countries don’t even accept one [immigrant] He answers: “Germany accepts 1.2 million, which is a very generous decision. So if they change the policy and want to limit it, there is no embarrassment.”

He also admires the fact that Weidel “openly wants Germany to be more independent from American influence.” “I think these are some things we need to do,” he adds. Those who know German politics will find this argument surprising because the AfD is seen as the party closest to Trump and almost all parties in the country want more independence from the United States. A strong endorsement of someone at the extremes of far-right European politics may lead to some contradictions, and there are more surprises.

Ai’s attitude towards China has changed dramatically. He recently said that the nation is “in an upward phase,” noting the technological advances that have been made and the increase in personal freedoms. However, the West struggles to “preserve its own logic,” has lost its “moral authority” and “has descended into something unrecognizable.”

And while a quick glance across the Atlantic to America in the era of ICE raids might go some way to making his point, he also means Europe. Has the most famous critic of the Chinese regime now toed the party line? “My stance with China started before I could recognize myself as an individual. I grew up in this black hole with my parents,” he says, pointing to a photo on his iPhone of a desolate site in northwest China.

He’s not exactly angry, but the suggestion that he has softened his stance on the Chinese government has touched a nerve. “I still have a Chinese passport. My mother is still Chinese. This is my only connection to China,” he says. “I’m not nostalgic. I’m not a patriot.” What about the claim that the West embraces censorship? Is this his experience in the UK? ““I can’t go into details,” he says vaguely. “But I feel the same kind of surveillance, the same kind of censorship in the West.”

When pressed for an example, he told me a story about the Royal Academy in London, the institution that presented him with a history exhibition in 2015 and made him an honorary member in 2011 after his arrest in China. In November 2023, an exhibition of new works to be shown at Leeson Gallery was withdrawn after he posted a tweet that began by saying: “Guilt about the persecution of the Jewish people has sometimes been transferred to make amends to the Arab world.” The tweet, in which the artist told reporters that his program was “effective,” was deleted. [been] canceled”.

In the aftermath, a vote was held in the RA to determine whether its membership should be revoked due to accusations that the publication was anti-Semitic. “I have no intention of being anti-Semitic,” Ai says. “My best friends, all of them are Jewish.” “I’ve tweeted millions of tweets on Twitter, but [how is it that] Can this tweet cause such problems? Then they said the procedure was to allow academics to vote.

He was supported by his peers and won the vote. Ai was then asked to write an article on freedom of expression for RA magazine, which he did, saying: “Telling the truth and insisting on one’s point of view is dangerous and may come at a high price. Books may not be published, exhibitions may be closed, concerts cancelled.”

After he sent it, there was silence. Then he said the RA claimed they didn’t have the space to run the piece. For him, this is censorship in the West, which he says in his book On Censorship can be “more secretive, more deceptive and more corrosive” than in authoritarian regimes. “I have several cases like this,” Ai adds. “It happens in Britain and Germany.”

The RA disputes this account, claiming that the decision to drop the piece was made before Ai presented it. A spokesperson for the organization added: “Pluralism of voices, tolerance and free thinking are at the core of what we stand for and seek to protect.”

I wonder how Ai feels about the world in 2026. His new book depicts the world as a place without refuge for those who value self-expression and freedom of expression. “I think we live today in a complicated world, where life is like a broken mirror,” he says. “It reflects reality, but reality can be a broken reality.”

Did his trip to China restore his faith in humanity? There is a pause. “If we were in the Tang Dynasty, someone like me would come back and write beautiful poetry,” he says with a smile. “But not today. I’m just taking some selfies.”