Five Hong Kong booksellers connected to a publishing house specializing
in sensational books critical of China’s top leaders have gone missing,
raising fears in the former British colony that its freedoms of press,
speech, and religion are deteriorating.
The mystery deepened on Jan. 4 after the wife of Lee Bo, co-owner of
Causeway Bay Bookstore, dropped the missing person’s report she filed
last week. She claimed to have received a letter from Lee saying he was
fine and just helping with an investigation in mainland China. But at
the time of his disappearance last week, Lee had left his travel permit
at home, and Hong Kong police said officials had no record he legally
crossed the border.
“I believe he wasn’t forced to write it, so that’s why I withdrew the
request for police help,” Lee’s wife Choi Ka-ping told Hong Kong’s South
China Morning Post. But democratic lawmakers are skeptical and believe
Choi may have been under pressure to drop the case after international
media picked up on the disappearances. Lee is a British citizen.
The Causeway Bay Bookstore is known for selling salacious exposés on
China’s top officials, including President Xi Jinping. Mainland tourists
often come to Hong Kong and Taiwan to buy these titles, which are
banned back home. Some believe the cause of the disappearances is an
unreleased book by publisher Gui Minhai about Xi and his love life,
entitled Xi Jinping and His Six Women. Gui, a Swedish citizen,
disappeared in Thailand in October and has not been heard from since.
After Gui’s disappearance and before his own, Lee told The Guardian that
the other three booksellers who had gone missing while traveling in
mainland China had nothing to do with Gui’s book.
British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond, currently on a two-day visit
to China, said during a news conference that he has “urgently inquired
both Hong Kong authorities and of the mainland Chinese authorities what,
if anything they know about [Lee’s] whereabouts.” When asked about
whether Chinese security had abducted Lee, Hammond claimed that was
still just speculation.
China has denied any knowledge of where the missing men may be. But at
the same news conference, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi claimed other
countries had “no right to interfere” as Lee was “first and foremost a
Chinese citizen.” An editorial in the Global Times, a mouthpiece for
China’s Communist Party, said “Although the bookstore operates in Hong
Kong, it has caused damage across the border in the rest of the country,
which Lee Bo should have known.”
When the British government handed Hong Kong back to China in 1997,
China agreed to a “one country, two systems” relationship that would
allow Hong Kong to keep its political, legal, and economic systems for
the ensuing 50 years. Since Xi came into power, more and more Hong Kong
citizens question whether China is keeping its end of the bargain: In
2014, China barred Hong Kong from fully democratic elections in 2017,
leading to 100,000 people flooding the streets during the Umbrella
Movement protests. Press freedoms also have been deteriorating as those
who speak up against the Chinese government face physical threats,
financial pressures, and self-censorship.
Churches also are feeling the strain, as Hong Kong often is a
springboard for missionaries to enter China as well as a relatively safe
place to hold conferences for mainland Chinese Christians. But it’s no
longer outside the reaches of Beijing’s control. Last summer, Chinese
authorities summoned outspoken Hong Kong Rev. Philip Woo to meet in the
city of Shenzhen, where he was told to stop training mainland students
in Hong Kong. It was the first time China had issued a letter to a
pastor in Hong Kong.
Since then, Woo has continued his work but keeps his discipleship
trainings much smaller as the pressure on Hong Kong increases. He only
makes day trips into China, as he fears longer stays would attract the
attention of authorities. He’s also lost financial support because
Christian groups are afraid to stoke China’s ire and support a
blacklisted pastor.
“A lot of people are nervous right now,” Woo said. He pointed to Lee’s
case as the end of “one country, two systems,” as China literally makes
its critics vanish. “It’s not just publishers that are under pressure,
it’s journalists, Christians, democracy activists. … It’s very scary.”
Courtesy: WORLD News Service
Photo courtesy: Wikipedia
Publication date: January 11, 2016
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