The AP Interview: Exiled artist Ai Weiwei on Beijing Games

By STEPHEN WADE
AP Sports Writer

Ai Weiwei is one of China’s most famous artists, and he helped design the Bird’s Nest stadium for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. It will be the venue for the opening ceremony of Beijing Winter Olympics on Feb. 4. He was jailed in Beijing in 2011 for unspecified crimes and now lives in exile in Portugal and has been an unrelenting critic of the Chinese Communist Party. Ai tells The Associated Press that the 2008 Olympics helped the government strengthen its control as human rights conditions have worsened in China. He says the Winter Olympics will have a similar effect and allow China again to show the world “a fake smile” using the Olympics as a stage.