{"id":42634,"date":"2022-03-19T18:00:23","date_gmt":"2022-03-19T09:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2022\/mar\/19\/ai-weiwei-new-silk-road-chinese-power-grab"},"modified":"2022-03-19T18:00:23","modified_gmt":"2022-03-19T09:00:23","slug":"ai-weiwei-on-the-new-silk-road-this-is-chinas-counterattack-in-a-global-game-of-chess","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=42634","title":{"rendered":"Ai Weiwei on the new Silk Road: \u2018This is China\u2019s counterattack in a global game of chess\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>China is pouring trillions into the developing world. It is, the artist and activist says, an audacious power grab<\/p>\n<p>The landscapes in Davide Monteleone\u2019s images of China\u2019s belt and road initiative are very familiar to me. We can see desert, uninhabited wasteland and views along the Yangtze River and in north-west China. There are also photographs showing the characters \u201cStay strong, Wuhan!\u201d on skyscrapers in neon lights.<\/p>\n<p>They are reminiscent of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.metmuseum.org\/art\/collection\/search\/77471\" title=\"\">images<\/a> I took in China, which captured dilapidated cities before they were rebuilt; energy plants; the development of impoverished areas and large-scale architecture. At that time, I wanted to write a new encyclopedia to elucidate new concepts and thoughts that emerge with rapid urbanisation, and to form a new language. The project was too ambitious, and I did not complete it. It was my failed \u201cbelt and road\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018Stay strong, Wuhan!\u2019 The Chinese city of Heihe seen from Blagoveschensk, Russia, across the frozen Amur River, February 2020<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2022\/mar\/19\/ai-weiwei-new-silk-road-chinese-power-grab\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>China is pouring trillions into the developing world. It is, the artist and activist says, an audacious power grabThe landscapes in Davide Monteleone\u2019s images of China\u2019s belt and road initiative are very familiar to me. We can see desert, uninhabited w&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2970,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[412,50,59,2466],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-belt-and-road-initiative","category-china","category-global-development","category-infrastructure"],"aioseo_notices":[],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2970"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42634"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42634\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42635,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42634\/revisions\/42635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}