Ai Weiwei ordered to pay £1.5m in tax - China ordena pagar 1,7 millones de euros a Ai Weiwei por "evasión de impuestos"

Ai Weiwei, the internationally renowned Chinese artist detained by authorities for almost three months this spring, has said officials have ordered him to pay £1.5m in tax.

Beijing police released him in June, citing his ill health, good attitude in confessing his crimes, and willingness to repay back taxes he had evaded.

But the 54-year-old told the Guardian he did not owe the money and would challenge the demand, adding: "It's a game they play all the time … They needed an excuse to take me away for 81 days."

Ai's family and supporters always believed his detention was in retaliation for his social and political activism. During his interrogations Ai was questioned about issues such as subversion of state power rather than his accounts.

Ai said the authorities told him the tax was owed by Fake, the company that handled his affairs but that was legally registered by his wife.

"I am a designer for the company; I am not the legal representative, nor the manager. I never signed papers or made a deal or transferred money - I was nothing to do with the accounting. They said I was the 'actual controlling person' of the company," he added.

Continua reading in The Guardian.

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El artista y disidente chino Ai Weiwei ha recibido hoy una notificación de las autoridades, en la que le ordenan que pague 15 millones de yuanes (1,7 millones de euros), en concepto de impuestos evadidos, multas y retrasos, por parte de la compañía para la que trabaja como diseñador. Ai asegura que ha rechazado aceptar la orden oficial y que no responderá a la demanda hasta que sean devueltos los libros de contabilidad de la empresa y pueda hablar con el contable y el gestor de esta. Dice que solamente pagará si realmente se trata de un problema de impuestos. Sus simpatizantes afirman que la medida es un castigo por su disidencia política y sus aceradas críticas al Gobierno.

Ai, de 54 años, conocido, entre otros, por su diseño del estadio olímpico de Pekín –el ‘Nido de Pájaro’-, fue detenido el pasado 3 de abril en el aeropuerto de Pekín, y permaneció en manos de las autoridades sin cargos durante más de dos meses. Fue soltado el 22 de junio, bajo fianza. Entre las condiciones impuestas para su liberación, está que no conceda entrevistas a la prensa extranjera y que no salga de Pekín durante un año.

Continuar leyendo en El País.

China becomes an urban nation at breakneck speed. Tania Branigan

This is the year China finally became an urban nation. In April the census revealed that 49.7% of its 1.34bn population was living in cities, compared with around a fifth as economic reforms got off the ground in 1982. By now, China's urbanites outnumber their country cousins. "The process they have been going through over three decades took four or five decades in Japan and [South] Korea and 100 years in the west," says Edward Leman, whose Chreod consultancy has advised numerous Chinese cities on development.

By 2025, one study suggests, 350 million more people will have moved to cities; more than the population of the US. Five years later the urban population will top 1 billion. There will be 221 cities with more than 1 million inhabitants; Europe currently has 35. The number of new skyscrapers could equate to 10 New York cities. The impact will be felt worldwide: in prices for commodities such as steel and copper, and in greenhouse gas emissions.

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