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Chinese dissident throws PBS reporter for a loop when she asks about Trump’s ‘authoritarianism’

November 16, 2021 | | Print Article

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Chinese artist and dissident Ai Weiwei warned Americans during an interview on PBS’ “Firing Line” with Margaret Hoover that political correctness in the United States is now eerily reflecting Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution in China and that we are already living in an authoritarian state.

The discussion appeared to deviate from what Hoover had expected. She cited a quote from Weiwei’s book, veering the conversation towards former President Trump and authoritarianism.

“In your book, you were describing the directives of Mao Zedong during the Cultural Revolution that would be distributed publicly every night. And then you write — this is your quote — ‘They served a function similar to Donald Trump’s midnight tweets in office. They were the direct communication of a leader’s thoughts to his devoted followers, enhancing the sanctity of his authority,’” Hoover noted.

Then she asked him, “So do you see Donald Trump as an authoritarian?”

Weiwei disagreed with her assessment of Trump. Instead, he referred to today’s “woke” America under President Biden as an authoritarian state.

“If you are authoritarian, you have to have a system supporting you. You cannot just be an authoritarian by yourself. But certainly, in the United States, with today’s condition, you can easily have an authoritarian. In many ways, you’re already in the authoritarian state. You just don’t know it,” he said, shocking Hoover.

Hoover pressed on in the hopes of turning the discussion around. Weiwei continued by asserting that efforts by Americans to be “unified in a certain political correctness” have proven to be very dangerous.

“It’s very philosophical. With today’s technology, we know so much more than we really understand. The information [has] become jammed. But we don’t really — and really have the knowledge, because you don’t work. You don’t — You don’t have to act on anything. You just think you’re purified by certain ideas that you agree with it. That is posing dangers to society, to an extreme divided society,” Weiwei posited.

Asked if the U.S. could devolve into authoritarianism, he replied, “I think, for a long time, the West is material. We have much more than we needed. And we are not caring about global situation. But, eventually, all the policies and the politics we play has to be examined under the global situation, such as China become a very powerful state. And how the West should deal with it.”

Although his words sound globalist, what Weiwei appears to be saying here is that China is a global threat that has to be addressed sooner or later by the United States.

“In China, we have a wisdom—to deal with anything, you have to be strong yourself. I don’t think West is strong themself enough to deal with China,” Weiwei astutely asserted in the interview.

Weiwei is a fierce critic of China’s policies against cultural dissenters and he has vociferously spoken out against the authoritative regime. In 2020, he infamously created a secret documentary on China’s brutal measures when trying to control the coronavirus outbreak.

Over 65 million people have been killed in Communist China for political reasons since the communists seized control in 1949-50. Currently, an estimated 1.5 million Chinese are imprisoned in concentration camps, where they are reportedly systematically tortured, raped, sterilized, murdered, and/or are victims of organ harvesting.

Many Americans already know that they are living in an authoritarian state under the Biden administration:

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Terresa Monroe-Hamilton
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