Dissident artist Weiwei says China unrest won't alter regime

MONTEMOR-O-NOVO, Portugal (AP) — Dissident Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei is taking heart from recent public protests in China over the authorities’ strict COVID-19 policy, but he doesn’t see them bringing about any significant political change.

“I don’t think that’s possible,” he told The Associated Press in an interview at his home in Portugal.

The recent unrest in several Chinese cities that has questioned Beijing’s authority — going so far as to demand President Xi Jinping’s resignation in what have been the boldest protests in decades — is “a big deal,” Ai acknowledges. But it is unlikely to go further, he says.

Challenges to Chinese Communist Party rule are routinely snuffed out with whatever degree of brutality is required. Ai points, for example, to how Beijing cracked down on Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement two years ago.