Rumors have been circulating around the inter-tubes that Ai Weiwei is/will be charged for economic crimes. Not sure what this means; is this like going after Al Capone for tax evasion?
Sadly in many ways it doesn't really matter. The rule of law does not exist in China in the same way that it does in America or many other countries. You can't look to the letter of the law to explain why things like this happen. For issues like this, it is due to political reasons. By this I do not mean ideological politics, but small ball politics. The rhetoric of ideological politics is everywhere in China from banners pronouncing the "three shoulda's" and the "five woulda's" (Ok I'm being a little sarcastic.) or mandatory political education classes in universities. Even still people don't taken them seriously, every student I spoke with at HeDa dismissed these political education classes as worthless and boring, and even told me that the teachers themselves showed no interest in the subject matter they were supposed to be teaching.
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