Detained Chinese artist 'suspected' of economic crimes

Chinese police said that detained artist and activist Ai Weiwei is being investigated for "suspected economic crimes", while his family said on Thursday he was the victim of a political crackdown decried by the departing US ambassador.

"Police said late Wednesday they are investigating Ai Weiwei for suspected economic crimes in accordance with the law," the official Xinhua news agency said in a brief dispatch issued on Wednesday just before midnight.

The burly, bearded Ai (pronounced "eye") had a hand in designing the Bird's Nest stadium for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and has mixed an international art career with colourful campaigns critical of government censorship and political restrictions.

Xinhua gave no other details of the allegations against Ai, who was stopped on Sunday from boarding a flight from Beijing to Hong Kong and taken away by border police, sparking condemnation from Western governments and Chinese human rights campaigners.

The claim that Ai may be under police investigation for economic crimes, which could cover charges such as tax evasion, is unlikely to still the uproar that his case has sparked, triggering friction with Western governments.

Outgoing US ambassador Jon Huntsman, who is leaving his post to consider a run as a Republican presidential contender, joined the fray.

"The United States will never stop supporting human rights," he said in a speech in Shanghai on Wednesday evening.

Future US ambassadors "will continue to speak up in defence of social activists, like Liu Xiaobo, Chen Guangcheng and now Ai Weiwei, who challenge the Chinese government to serve the public in all cases and at all times," said Huntsman, according to a transcript on the website of the US consulate in Shanghai.

Liu is the jailed dissident who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize earlier this year, prompting outrage from China. Chen is a rural legal campaigner held in house arrest since being released from jail in 2010.

Ai's mother, Gao Ying, rejected the charges of "economic crimes" and said they were being used to stifle his activism.

"If he's not released, this will be the start of a long struggle," she said by telephone.

"The idea that this is about economic crimes is laughable. If it was that, why search his home so thoroughly and why not just use a usual warrant to question him? But instead they haven't told us anything and we don't know where he is."

Ai's campaigning has included voicing support for Nobel winner Liu and an online campaign to collect the names of children buried in a earthquake in southwest Sichuan province in 2008, many in schools that he and others said were poorly built because of corruption.

On Wednesday, a Chinese newspaper, the Global Times suggested that Ai had been testing the bounds of official tolerance. On Thursday, the paper issued new criticism of Western condemnation and reporting about the case and suggested that Ai was targeted for his political "provocations."

China, it said, "needs people like Ai Weiwei. But at the same time, it is even more important that Chinese law restrict the provocative behaviour of Ai Weiwei and others."

Since February, the government's fears of challenges to one-party rule have been magnified by online calls for "Jasmine Revolution" protest gatherings inspired by the political flux across West Asia and North Africa.

Even feeble efforts to act on those calls were smothered by police, but the threat of protests has triggered an unusually broad crackdown. At least three activists have been arrested on  subversion charges often used to jail dissidents.

In 2009, a Beijing human rights lawyer, Xu Zhiyong, was detained on suspected tax charges before being released after an uproar at home and abroad about vague economic accusations being used to intimidate government critics.

Ai's mother, Gao Ying, said he was unlikely to bow to accusations of economic misdeeds to win a swift release.

"He wouldn't surrender just to escape from their hands quickly," she said. "If he's not given justice, he'll refuse to come out, I think. That's his character."