Hong Kong’s publishing world and the fate of its democracy advocates were the focus of a Taipei forum on freedom of the press on Friday, where some of the speakers, who included exiled Chinese and Hong Kongers, said that freedom of the press was dead in the territory.
Lam Wing-kei (林榮基), a former co-owner of Causeway Bay Books in Hong Kong, who fled to Taiwan last year and reopened the bookstore in Taipei in April, also shed some light on China’s continued detention of Gui Minhai (桂民海), a shareholder in the Hong Kong store.
Gui, a Chinese-born Swedish citizen and author, vanished from his holiday home in Pattaya, Thailand, in October 2015, one of five men connected to the bookstore who disappeared only to turn up later in Chinese detention, including Lam.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
Lam told the forum that Gui was taken because he was in possession a copy of a manuscript by Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) that allegedly contained material threatening Xi’s position as China’s leader.
The copy included a story about a love triangle that possibly involved Xi, who feared that if made public, he could come under attack from his political foes, Lam said.
Lam said that to Xi, disclosure of the copy was worse than books criticizing the Chinese government.
Gui in February was sentenced to 10 years in jail for “illegally providing intelligence overseas.”
Chinese poet and editor-in-exile Bei Ling (貝嶺) told the forum that freedom of the press no longer exists in Hong Kong.
Frontline Magazine editor-in-chief Liu Ta-wen (劉達文) has warned that the magazine could cease operations, as no one dared to write and publish articles in the wake of Beijing’s new National Security Law for Hong Kong, Bei Ling said.
Swindon Book Company, one of the oldest bookstores in Hong Kong and one of the biggest distributors of books forbidden by Beijing, is also to close after decades, he said.
Meanwhile, Lam said that the exact number of young Hong Kongers who have planned to seek refuge in Taiwan by boat, but have been detained by Chinese police at sea, remains unknown.
The Chinese government has blocked sea channels between Hong Kong and Taiwan to prevent people from secretly fleeing to seek asylum, he said.
While Chinese data showed that about a dozen people were detained late last month, the actual figure could be higher, he said.
Simon Cheng (鄭文傑), a former employee of the British consulate in Hong Kong who was detained and allegedly tortured in Shenzhen last year, has said that he saw more than 10 Hong Kongers under detention at the same place he was held, and so he is an important eyewitness to how China treats some Hong Kongers, Lam said.
However, what Cheng saw could be only the tip of the iceberg, because the number of people disappearing into Chinese custody and their whereabouts are unknown, Lam added.
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