HK Observer | Fairy tales about missing booksellers

Robert Carroll

It’d be hard to find anyone in Hong Kong who honestly believes that the five missing booksellers were not blackmailed, kidnapped or perhaps ‘honey trapped’; set up in sex-related situations. A Beijing mouthpiece Global Times editorial said recently that there were ways to get people to cooperate in investigations without abducting them.  So was it enforced removal, seduction and blackmail or is it all innocent legal behaviour? I am sure a bookmaker would give very long odds on a bet on the latter. Perhaps it’s a combination of all of these.
The latest “disappearee,” Lee Bo, told the South China Morning Post recently, in an interview, that he felt safe in Hong Kong but not over the border. He then went missing without telling his wife; highly suspicious. “I am not worried. I have avoided going to the mainland for many years”; That he then phoned his wife from Shenzhen in Putonghua – not the language he uses with her – is also suspicious. Despite these circumstances Chief Executive  Leung Chun-ying has said the investigation into the disappearance would continue and urged “especially Mr Lee Bo” to “contact the police and provide information”. As if he could.
Highly suspect too that a pro-Beijing lawmaker claimed that all five from Mighty Current publishers were arrested for sex with prostitutes – after secretly taking a boat to China. The sex recorded by mainland police. More, it’s ridiculous; considering that the other four went missing in October. Mighty Current publishes books critical of, or embarrassing to President Xi Jinping and other current or former party leaders, and runs a bookshop which sells other books banned in China.
So according to the legislator, or most likely the fabricator of this story, this is what happened. Let’s walk this through. The four decide to lie low in October, one during a holiday in Thailand. Next all of them, who knew they would be detained if they set foot in China, simultaneously, a few days ago, took the risk of long jail terms to see prostitutes in Shenzhen.
In the words of Alice from “Alice in Wonderland” in another absurd fairly tale: “curiouser and curiouser.”
The legislator, Ng Leung-sing, said, in a Legislative Council meeting, that he was relaying a message from a friend. Later Ng apologized, saying that he was only trying to add another theory to explain Lee’s disappearance. His many critics say he was re-circulating an online rumor – but on orders, or of his own volition?
Another suspicious event is Lee’s wife withdrawing her request for police help after receiving a handwritten fax, which, she said, was in her husband’s handwriting.
There are two very serious concerns here. Firstly Hong Kong residents, who may have antagonized individuals over the border, may worry about disappearing and reappearing over the border. Then, charged with some vague, catch-all-law – meaningless here – be tried in a court whose decision has been made in advance by Party officials; as is the regular process in cases deemed to be political. Problem is, with well connected mainlanders many disagreements can be made to be political.
Secondly if, as widely suspected, mainland security forces were involved in Hong Kong, it was in violation of the Basic Law and “one country two systems.” This would not be the first time. In one widely publicized case two mainland police officers were arrested for loitering outside a residential building in Pokfulam with handcuffs. They were released with no action taken.
All in all this episode does not bode well for journalists, or publishers and freedom of the press and expression, as guaranteed in the Basic Law.
On balance we also have to question the judgement of the publishers. On the one hand they made available reliable books of public interest, such as “The Tiananmen Diaries” and the autobiography of the late liberal leader, Zhao Zhiyang. However on the other hand, they sold some hasty – and what appear to be gossip and rumoured-tinged books – embarrassing to senior Chinese figures. Nevertheless respecting our legal system, libel actions here would be the appropriate course of action rather than what seems to have happened.