In Hong Kong, they’re calling it the case of the five missing booksellers. What an intriguing title for a mystery, but do not file it under fiction. Five men from Hong Kong’s publishing industry really have vanished, leaving residents to wonder if there is a sinister explanation involving authorities in China and the possible violation of Hong Kong’s freedoms.
All five are connected to a Hong Kong publishing house and bookstore specializing in Chinese political gossip — books that are banned in China. Three of the men disappeared while in mainland China in October and a fourth was last known to be in Thailand that month. The fifth is a book editor named Lee Bo, who set off to visit a Hong Kong book warehouse in late December and never returned home.
Lee’s wife filed a missing persons report, which she retracted after he contacted her from the mainland with an odd excuse about “cooperating with certain parties in an investigation.” He’ll be gone a while, he faxed, don’t worry. There is no confirmation of his whereabouts from China’s government. There is also no record of Lee ever having left Hong Kong territory via a border crossing.
Feel the suspense and dread building? In Hong Kong many people do, because the book company has enemies in China. The firm, Mighty Current Media, produces alluring titles like “Overseas Mistresses of the Chinese Communist Party” — sensationalistic books that appeal to visitors from the mainland hungry for tales of sex and corruption among powerful officials. At home, the party controls the media and everything else, which makes for pretty dry reading.
Hong Kong is different — or at least it’s supposed to be. When the former British colony was returned to Chinese rule in 1997, Hong Kong was granted 50 years of governing autonomy under the principle of “one country, two systems.” That’s supposed to include an independent judiciary and free press. But Beijing chafes at Hong Kong’s freedoms and puts restraints on the independence Hong Kong citizens value. The two sides have been embroiled in a battle over the terms of Hong Kong’s next election of a local leader. Democracy activists want an open vote, but Beijing insists on vetting the candidates.
With that conflict still raw, many in Hong Kong imagine the worst about the fate of the booksellers: that some authorities in China lost patience with the publisher and snatched the employees. If so, the last straw was likely rumors that the publisher’s next book would be about an old girlfriend of Chinese President Xi Jinping. A Chinese government newspaper, Global Times, lashed out at the book publisher in a recent editorial, saying it “damages the mainland’s vital interests to maintain its harmony and stability.”
Now about the disappearances: Hong Kong police are investigating. Local officials say they are worried about a breach of the Hong Kong law guaranteeing autonomy, but they have stopped short of demanding an explanation from Beijing. Hong Kong’s leader, Leung Chun-ying, said there is “no indication” Lee was kidnapped by Chinese agents. The British government is also asking about Lee because he holds a British passport.
The disappearances are very fishy. If China has any involvement it will be a blow to Hong Kong’s identity as an open society, and China’s credibility. But damage has been done already: Hong Kong’s government sounds tentative, instead of livid, and another publisher reportedly has pulled sensitive books from the shelves. This mystery needs a quick resolution, which requires that Chinese authorities investigate, release the men if they’ve been detained and explain what happened.
