Ai Weiwei’s release from custody has not ended his conflict with the Chinese state. Today’s New York Times details the issue:

In a telephone interview, Gao Ying, Mr. Ai’s mother, said two tax bureau officials came to the door of his studio on Monday with documents claiming that his company, Beijing Fake Cultural Development Ltd., owed nearly 5 million renmimbi, or $770,000 in back taxes and an additional 7.3 million renmimbi, or $1.1 million, in penalties. She said he refused to sign the documents.

His family insists that Mr. Ai is neither the chief executive nor the legal representative of the design company, which is registered in his wife’s name. “If it is Weiwei’s responsibility, he will gladly take it, but he has no reason to pay for something he is not responsible for,” Ms. Gao said. “As his mother I think the authorities should get the facts straight first.”

Reached on his cellphone Tuesday night, Mr. Ai said his studio did not agree with the figures contained in the documents but he declined to elaborate.

Attorney for Released Chinese Artist Seeks Review on Taxes (New York Times)

 

The New York Times points out that Ai Weiwei’s release today is a victory for those who spoke out in protest against the government’s actions. Ai is out on “bail.”

It generally means that prosecutors have decided to drop charges against a suspect on certain conditions, including good behavior, and to subject him to monitoring over a period of time during which charges could be reintroduced.

“This is a technique that the public security authorities sometimes use as a face-saving device to end controversial cases that are unwise or unnecessary for them to prosecute,” Jerome A. Cohen, a scholar of the Chinese legal system, said in an e-mail. “Often in such cases, a compromise has been reached in negotiation with the suspect, as apparently it has been here.”

Mr. Cohen said Mr. Ai’s release “is very good news and perhaps the very best outcome that could have been expected in the circumstances of this difficult case.”

Liu Xiaoyuan, Mr. Ai’s lawyer, said in a Twitter post that as long as the taxes were paid, Mr. Ai would probably remain free.

Dissident Chinese Artist Is Released (New York Times)

 

Eric Gibson takes a strong stand in the Wall Street Journal on the AAMD’s weak position over Ai Weiwei’s detention in China:

Instead the organization took two months to speak out, not addressing the Ai issue until June 10, and then only as part of a press release reporting on the proceedings of its annual conference. And it was no clarion call in defense of the beleagured artist. Instead, buried about halfway down was a terse, two-sentence statement that would have made Neville Chamberlain blush: “First, AAMD maintains the conviction that freedom of expression should be upheld in all societies; Second we believe it is vitally important to continue cultural exchanges, dialogue, and collaboration with China.”

Translation: Pity about Mr. Ai, but the blockbusters must go on.

Lest there remain any question about where Mr. Ai’s plight figures in AAMD’s set of priorities, that statement was third on a list of four news items contained in the release. The first two dealt with—stop the presses—diversity in museums.

He’s right, of course. Then, again, his own corporation has a long history of having accommodated the Chinese government as a strategic necessity.

US Museum Directors to Ai Weiwei: Drop Dead (Wall Street Journal)

Holland Carter explains how Ai Weiwei found a position critical of China’s government that was protected until the uprisings in Africa and the Middle East caused China’s harshest crackdown:

To anyone familiar with China’s hardball official politics, Mr. Ai’s aggressive words sounded suicidally aggressive and the silence from the government in Beijing was perplexing. But at this juncture, both parties were almost ceremonially enacting ancient roles. In Chinese culture, going back to Confucius, there has been a tradition of individual scholars and intellectuals denouncing rulers for wrongdoing that was bringing disharmony to society, and particularly if that wrongdoing was injurious to innocence.

Examples of such face-offs recur in traditional literature and painting. And often, but not always, the self-sacrificing honesty of the accuser has rendered him immune to retaliation.

An Artist Takes Role of Cina’s Conscience (New York Times)