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Ai, Reporter

September 19, 2012, 6:08 pm
By ROBERT MACKEY and CHRISTINE HAUSER

On Tuesday in Beijing, amid protests over the sovereignty of several tiny islands also claimed by Japan, a small group of protesters briefly surrounded the American ambassador's car outside the United States Embassy, pelting it with objects. As our colleagues Thom Shanker and Ian Johnson reported, Ambassador Gary Locke said later, “I never felt in any danger.”

Video of the incident, uploaded to YouTube by the dissident artist Ai Weiwei,
showed that the protesters arrived at the embassy's gate, with remarkable timing, at precisely the same moment as the ambassador's car. A line of police officers appeared on the scene, running in formation, seconds before the pr otesters blocked the car.

Video of Chinese protesters outside the United States Embassy in Beijing on Tuesday, blocking the car of the American ambassador.

The video clip also showed the protesters, who had apparently pealed off from a larger anti-Japanese rally, chanting and throwing objects at the car, before police officers cleared a path for the vehicle to drive off.

Writing on Twitter, Mr. Ai reported that dozens of protesters had arrived at the embassy at about 4 p.m. chanting, “Pay us back our money!” and “Down with U.S. imperialism,” perhaps in reference to American support for Japan.

The artist also posted a series of photographs on Twitter, via Instagram, which appear to have been shot just after the video, from above and at street level, showing more and more security gathered around the embassy gate.

Mr. Ai has not yet confirmed that he shot the video and photographs uploaded to his social media accounts, but another clip posted on YouTube this week by a video blogger in Beijing appeared to show the artist shooting images of a protest on Sunday outside the Japanese embassy on his iPhone.

Video posted on YouTube on Sunday appeared to show the artist Ai Weiwei recording protests at the Japanese embassy that day.

In April, our colleague Edward Wong reported, Mr. Ai said that he was ordered to shut down a Web site, weiweicam.com, which streamed live video of the artist from webcams in his home and studio in Beijing. That project was apparently a critique of the government's decision to put him under constant surveillance after releasing him from 81 days in secret detention.