In July, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) indicted two agents of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for working with a ring of Chinese spies whose mission was to intimidate and silence critics of the Chinese Communist regime living abroad.
One of their victims was an artist named Chen Weiming, whose sculpture blaming China for the coronavirus pandemic was torched by the espionage team in July 2021. The indomitable sculptor has since recreated the work using non-flammable materials.
Chen’s statue, and its replacement, are three-story sculptures of Chinese dictator Xi Jinping with half his face melted away to reveal a grinning death’s-head. Xi’s hair has been replaced by “Hellraiser”-type spikes reminiscent of the infamous coronavirus cell, and the base of the statue is labeled “CCP VIRUS.” CCP stands for the Chinese Communist Party. A bloodstained rendition of Communism’s hammer and sickle punctuates the display.
“If all these tourists stopped to take a look at my sculptures, they would see the inconsistencies and untruths in what the Chinese Communist Party says,” Chen told National Public Radio (NPR) in an interview on Sunday, conducted from the roadside attraction in the Mojave Desert where he decided to unveil “CCP VIRUS II.”
The details of how the first CCP VIRUS statue was destroyed serve as a prime example of what intelligence agencies in the free world are calling “transnational repression.” It was not simply a matter of a few Chinese Communist thugs jumping out of a van in the dead of night with cans of gasoline.
The rubble from the destroyed “CCP Virus” sculpture by artist Chen Weiming is seen at Liberty Sculpture Park in Yermo, California on June 1, 2022. (FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images)
As Chen explained to NPR, the FBI warned him in 2020 that the regime in Beijing was “very interested” in his work. Shortly after the first CCP VIRUS statue was unveiled, Chen’s volunteer assistants found a chain wrapped around it, suggesting someone had tried to drag it down in the middle of the night — the preferred technique of statue vandals from many ideological backgrounds around the world.
According to the criminal complaints filed against members of the Chinese spy ring, the group sent a phony “art dealer” to gain Chen’s confidence and planted bugs in his studio and car to keep tabs on him.
“There was an American businessman named Matthew. He came to my studio to commission the original piece and said he represented a Jewish art lover who wanted to open a museum for democracy in New York,” Chen recalled to NPR.
Chen Weiming
“Matthew said his boss wanted to see the process of sculpture. I thought it was totally reasonable, so I installed a camera for him. A few days later, Matthew said because the sculpture was three-dimensional, the camera wasn’t getting all the angles. So he came to install more cameras,” Chen continued.
Chinese President Xi Jinping delivers a keynote speech in virtual format at the opening ceremony of the BRICS Business Forum, June 22, 2022. (Ju Peng/Xinhua via Getty Images)
“Matthew” turned out to be Matthew Ziburis, a former Florida prison guard recruited by China’s agents. According to DOJ documents, Ziburis also planted a GPS tracking device in Chen’s car.
Meanwhile, another member of the team, Fan “Frank” Liu, hired private investigators to illegally obtain federal tax records for Chen and other dissidents targeted by the operation.
Today, after a day of hard work, we finally nailed Xi’s disease to the pillar of historical shame! During the transportation process, the virus was too high and the way was blocked by electric wires and telephone lines three times, so I could only climb to the top of the virus and jack up the electric wire with wooden bars, or put on insulating gloves and directly hold it up to let the truck pass through and reach the Freedom Sculpture Park safely. , and welded with the base. In order to prevent the CCP from destroying it again, we will be guarding with guns these days, waiting for the arrival of the public trial day on June 5! (Facebook/Weiming Chen)
One of the investigators got in touch with the FBI and helped agents record his conversations with Liu. In one of those secretly taped phone calls, Liu told the investigator to offer a $3,500 bribe to an IRS agent in exchange for access to Chen’s tax records.
Another intercepted communication caught Liu explaining to his Chinese handlers that since Chen asked high prices for his artwork, “we believe he definitely took in a large sum and evaded taxes, a major crime in the U.S.”
The spies planned to “totally get rid” of the dissident artist by bankrupting him with tax audits and court costs. Chen secretly gave the FBI-turned investigator his tax returns to keep the sting going but, at some point, the Chinese agents evidently decided they could not destroy him with tax-evasion charges, so they decided to simply disable the security cameras around his CCP VIRUS statue and burn it to the ground in July 2021, a little over a month after its unveiling. The FBI has evidence of the conspirators planning to destroy the statue but has not yet charged any of them with arson.
The spy ring used similar tactics against several other Chinese dissidents living in the United States, including efforts to obtain their confidential tax information. Prosecutors obtained voicemail recordings in which the group discussed using physical violence if all else failed, including potentially lethal attacks such as sabotaging the victims’ automobiles.
Chen was furious at the destruction of his sculpture but refused to be intimidated.
“I think this must come from a Chinese Communist Party Officer in Los Angeles. Something like this is not a personal action but a Chinese Government action against us and the American system of free speech,” he told reporters soon after the statue was destroyed.
“They want the truth about the origins of the COVID-19 virus to be hidden from the world. I will make a face, reproduce the sculpture and make new again,” he vowed.
Chen did indeed recreate the CCP VIRUS sculpture, even larger than before, using much stronger rebar and sheet metal. CCP VIRUS II is believed by its admirers to be the largest sculpture of Xi Jinping in the world, a distinction the Chinese dictator does not seem inclined to celebrate.
As with the original work, Chen timed the unveiling of the new statue to coincide with the June 4 anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. The debut ceremony included both a Tiananmen memorial ceremony and a moment of silence for the victims of the Wuhan coronavirus.
Several armed volunteers were on hand to provide security. Chen told NPR he has been patrolling the grounds himself with a gun and some dogs to protect his work.
“The CCP regime hates and cannot stand freedom and human rights, and here you can see the evidence of CCP evil. Whatever they do cannot stop us. We shall not be afraid of them, and we shall never quit fighting,” Chen told the audience at the unveiling through a translator.
Half of the estimated $50,000 cost of rebuilding the statue was covered by the Human Rights Foundation of New York, which professed great admiration for Chen’s work and said rebuilding his torched statue was an important gesture of support for free speech.
“If anyone wants a brief understanding of the difference between the red boot of the Chinese dictatorship and a free country, it’s this straightforward definition: China gave us the virus; freedom gave us the vaccine,” Human Rights Foundation founder Thor Halvorssen said at the unveiling ceremony.
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