The latest WikiLeaks exposures of US government secrets have created a media storm. In reality the disclosures have been neither sensational nor particularly surprising. Secrecy is an unfortunate characteristic of organisations that believe they have special entitlements to behave in ways that would almost certainly attract public criticism.
It is interesting however, that the case of Ai Weiwei, which reveals much about the authorities in China, has attracted so little comment.
Ai Weiwei is a visual artist. By definition, artists are intellectuals whose interpretation of ideas challenges social mores. In Australia in 2008, a photographer's portraits of young models attracted criticism from then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. Pressure put on galleries could have been regarded as attempts at censorship.
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When Ai Weiwei attempted to leave China recently however, the authorities intercepted him and have virtually placed him under house arrest. He is clearly seen as a threat to the state. The dictatorial attitudes of governments are revealed at times like these.
When Indonesia was slow to recognise East Timorese aspirations for self-determination, Indonesia's international reputation suffered along with the dissidents it suppressed. The same might be said of Burma and Aung San Suu Kyi, South Africa and Nelson Mandela and of any number of brutal regimes which fail to understand that governments earn legitimacy only when they serve their peoples.
China's treatment of Ai Weiwei symbolises its attacks on artists and dissidents and seems to be in the same despotic strain that stretches back to the massacre in Tienanmen Square. For its treatment of Ai Weiwei, China deserves severe international condemnation.
Ai Weiwei was in Australia in 2008. His works, which were exhibited in Campbelltown, showed a sharp sense of humour, compassion for victims of modernisation and ironic juxtaposition of the old and new, the authorised versions of events and the individual experience.
Ai Weiwei designed the 'bird's nest' stadium in Beijing, but then criticised the authorities' use of the Olympics for propaganda. His courage and determination and his artistic perceptions showed Ai Weiwei to be one of the most important individuals living in China.
Part of the current problem faced by Ai Weiwei is that the authorities feared his trip abroad could be used to express support for Chinese poet Liu Xiaobo.