Love the Future

As news broke on April 3, 2011, that artist and activist Ai Weiwei (艾未未) had been detained in Beijing, Chinese web censors apparently moved to scrub references to Ai from popular microblog platforms such as Sina Weibo and QQ Weibo. An alternative phrase quickly emerged to substitute for Ai’s name. Literally meaning “love the future,” the phrase, ai weilai (爱未来), could be readily spotted on China’s web, as documented by China Digital Times.


David Bandurski

Now director of the CMP, leading the project’s research and partnerships, David joined the team in 2004 after completing his master’s degree at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. He is currently an honorary lecturer at the Journalism and Media Studies Centre. He is the author of Dragons in Diamond Village (Penguin/Melville House), a book of reportage about urbanization and social activism in China, and co-editor of Investigative Journalism in China (HKU Press).