Oct. 20, 2022
- By Ai Weiwei
Mr. Ai is an artist and author who was imprisoned by the Chinese government.
“Communist Party rule of China has been punctuated by one mass public campaign after another, each designed to commandeer Chinese minds in service of the state.
There was the Great Leap Forward, the industrial reform campaign begun in 1958 that precipitated a devastating famine; the political witch hunts of the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution, which nearly tore China apart; and many more, some more damaging than others, and each targeting some political, social or economic imperative of the day. Their cumulative effect is one of the Communist Party’s greatest achievements: a near-perfect symbiosis between dictatorial government and subservient population.
The government’s nearly three-year-old zero-Covid campaign may be the worst of all.?