Detained Hong Kong bookseller Gui Minhai ‘alive and well’, Chinese ambassador to Sweden says
- Gui Congyou tells Swedish newspaper that country must face the consequences of ‘meddling’ in China’s affairs
- Last month Swedish culture minister Amanda Lind defied warnings from Beijing to present human rights prize awarded to Causeway Bay bookseller
China’s ambassador to Sweden has said the detained Hong Kong bookseller Gui Minhai is “alive and well” as the fallout from his case continued to affect relations between the two sides.
Ambassador Gui Congyou was interviewed by the Swedish financial newspaper Dagens industri and, according to a transcript released by the embassy on Thursday, he warned that Sweden must face the consequences of “meddling in [China’s] internal affairs”.
Tensions between the two countries heightened after a Swedish free speech organisation awarded a human rights award to the bookseller, a Chinese-born Swedish citizen, in November.
Sweden’s culture minister Amanda Lind defied a Chinese threat of “countermeasures” by presenting the prize.
The ambassador told the interviewer that China had cancelled a meeting of the China-Sweden Joint Committee on Economic, Industrial and Technical Cooperation earlier this month as a result. He also suggested that another cancelled visit by a business delegation was linked to the case.
