By Stephy Chung
Publication Date: 2026-01-22 06:24:00
In 2015, China returned Ai Weiwei something very valuable: his Chinese passport. The move allowed the dissident artist to travel for the first time since authorities confiscated his document in 2011 – the same year he spent 81 days in secret government detention for alleged tax evasion. Shortly afterwards he moved to Berlin.
Over the past decade, Ai has lived in Germany, Britain and now Portugal, never once setting foot in his home country, where people with far less controversial pasts have been subjected to arbitrary detention. But in mid-December he decided to take the risk Return for a three week visit.
“It felt like a phone call that had been interrupted for 10 years was suddenly reconnected,” he said of the moment he arrived in Beijing. “The tone, the rhythm and the speed were all back to what they were before.”
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