Who’s afraid of Ai Weiwei?

Arriving for an interview with Ai Weiwei at his Beijing compound, you get the sense you are about to enter the home of a successful artist.

Amid the drab, grey concrete and brick walls that dominate this part of the city, you can’t miss the door to his place – painted bright blue. It’s also just a short distance from Beijing’s excellent 798 arts district; a sprawling, dazzling enclave of creativity housed in a former cold war era electronics factory.

But the other notable thing sits just across the street from that blue door. It’s a utility pole supporting a couple of what appear to be surveillance cameras. Who put them here? Are they even turned on? If so, who’s watching?

I don’t know the answer to those questions, but my Chinese colleagues tell me it’s the government. So I assume I may be watched as I enter the home of one of the world’s best know dissident artists. I don’t worry too much about it as I’m an accredited journalist in China and I’m not breaking any rules.

But as far as he’s concerned, Ai Weiwei isn’t breaking any rules either. He’s just making art. But the consequences for him have been very different.

Ai Weiwei tells me that when he went to Sichuan province to shoot a documentary about the government’s response to the devastating 2008 earthquake he was beaten by the police and nearly died from a head injury.

He tells me that even if he wanted to leave China, he can’t, because the government won’t give him a passport.

He has a long list of such alleged intrusions on his life and work by the communist government of China.

During our interview, it strikes me that it’s hard to believe people as smart and as powerful as those in the upper rungs of China’s communist party could actually be afraid of, or even concerned about the work of someone like Ai Weiwei. A slightly pudgy fifty something, he’s much more soft spoken than you expect, and even tells me that he doesn’t consider himself a particularly bold person.

What’s more, while he may be critical of China’s current government, he seems to be someone who’s deeply concerned about China’s people – someone who actually loves his country, just takes issue with the political system.

In Western countries, people like Ai Weiwei are so commonplace that most of them toil away in utter obscurity.

Think of that Facebook friend you have who’s always posting things about their sacred cause. So much so that you start to ignore the postings, or even de-friend them.

Most artists and activists actually struggle to be on the radar screen.

As compelling as his art is, it strikes me that Ai Weiwei’s global fame, and the irritation it brings to the communist party, is actually much bigger because of the attempts to muzzle him.

Beat him up, take away his passport, and put a camera outside his house and you might as well just have a giant Goodyear Blimp floating there with an arrow pointing down and a sign saying “Attention: Big Story Here.”

Now, given that the folks in charge here in Beijing have just lifted more people out of poverty that at any period in human history, it’s perplexing that people that smart and capable would be handling it like this.

What am I missing here?

Walking out of his house after the interview, I see those cameras again and think: who’s really afraid of this guy? And if you are afraid of him, why would you want to make him even more famous?

Paul is Global National’s Asia correspondent, based in Beijing. Follow him on Twitter: @PJohnsonGlobal.