What's Ai Weiwei done to scare China?

Britain is expected to send 50 more diplomats to China to boost UK representation there. Foreign Secretary Hague’s announcement comes on a day when the Chinese avant garde artist Ai Weiwei opens his latest show at Somerset House in London. Except that HE doesn’t. He can’t. He’s locked up somewhere in China.

If we have another 50 diplomats in China, is there perhaps a chance we shall be able to track the disappearing dissidents like Weiwei?  Is there not something faintly eerie about the dawning a superpower as it seizes its position as the world’s second biggest economy, that at the same time it cannot face criticism from its foremost artist? I have met Weiwei, talked with him and enjoyed his company. If it is that he has committed some offence regarding tax or some such, tell us where he is and by what process he is being judged?

Why does this burgeoning energetic go-getting state need to behave quite so badly to its own people? What is it about the paintbrush or the sculptor’s chisel that so threatens the Chinese state? So dangerous to the smooth continuance of China is Weiwei seen by the authorities as being, that he had to be ripped off the steps of an aircraft bound for Hong Kong and thrown into the back of a paddy wagon, since when – now over a month ago – his wife has merely been able to establish that he is held by the state.

So frightened is the Chinese state of this larger than life figure – who fashions freedom out of pottery made sunflower seeds, and strips naked to protest the authorities repressive excesses – that no one is allowed to know where they have locked him up.

Anish Kapoor has called for all the world’s art galleries to close for one day on the same day to protest. It would send a brilliant and powerful message to the Chinese leadership. As if to say – we admire your great economic progress, we loath your cowardly abuse of your own people, of whom Weiwei is one.