BERLIN - Watching the Hong Kong protests from afar, Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei fears the worst, warning of a repeat of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown in Beijing.
Ai, a long-time and outspoken government critic, says he has no illusions that Beijing values order above all else. The New York-trained artist had confronted authorities especially after the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, charging that corruption and shoddily built state school buildings had heightened the death toll.
"As a victim of the Chinese authoritarian state, I have been secretly detained, I've been beaten, I have been put in jail, nobody knew where ... so what am I gonna say?" "Hong Kong students never experienced a situation like that," Ai said. "The demonstrators, most of them are born since the 90s, they never knew Hong Kong would have this kind of situation."
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