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Lawrence Chung

An exiled Hong Kong bookseller is reopening his store in Taiwan, saying he hopes it will be the start of a new and free life on the island.
Zhongshan Causeway Bay Books opened for business on Saturday despite a recent legal challenge and an attack on Lam Wing-kee, the owner of the store.
His new business means Lam will be able to gain a work permit that will allow him to seek permanent residency and eventually citizenship.
The 64-year-old was one of the five shareholders and staff at Hong Kong’s Causeway Bay Books, which sold books about China’s leaders that had been banned on the mainland.
All five went missing between October and December 2015 and it emerged they had been detained on the Chinese mainland.
Lam later said he had been detained and blindfolded by police after crossing the border into the Chinese city of Shenzhen from Hong Kong in October 2015.
He returned to Hong Kong in June 2016 after being told by his interrogators to bring back a hard disk containing information about the bookstore’s mainland customers.
But instead he went public by holding a news conference detailing his ordeal.

On April 25 last year, Lam fled to Taiwan over concerns he would be extradited to China under a now-withdrawn extradition bill that sparked months of unrest in Hong Kong.
“I just happened to pick that date for the opening of the bookstore as it is a Saturday and a day off for most people here,” Lam told the South China Morning Post, when asked if the grand opening has anything to do with his year-long exile in Taiwan.
Lam said the Hong Kong book store had been a platform to inspire people, especially visitors from the mainland, to think about the communist system and whether it benefited people.
He said the bookstore had been “destroyed” after the “disappearances”, adding: “I want to reopen it in Taiwan, where the political atmosphere is free and the government is monitored by the news media.
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“I not only want to turn the bookstore into an anti-communist symbol but also hope it will help Taiwanese to better understand the Chinese communists so that they can be aware of the crisis they will face due to political divisions within Taiwan.
“I know the Chinese communists are very unhappy and have tried as much as they can to stop me from reopening the bookstore in Taiwan, but that won’t stop me.”
Six days before the planned opening, Lam received a letter from a lawyer representing a bookstore in New Taipei registered as “Causeway Bay Books” that threatened legal action if he did not change the store’s name.
On Tuesday, Lam was attacked by two men who splashed red paint all over him. Police later arrested three men, including the alleged instigator, who claimed they had been angered by a fundraising drive to help open the shop.
“It’s hard to imagine this sort of thing happening in Taiwan,” said Lam who had raised close to NT$6 million (US$200,000) since September through a fundraising platform in Taipei. “Obviously, it was a threat from the Chinese communists, warning me not to open my bookstore.”

Despite the attack, Lam said he will go ahead: “Legal actions or threats, they will not stop me from opening the bookstore as planned.”
The opening has the blessing from the island’s government with the Mainland Affairs Council, Taiwan’s top mainland policy planner, saying the authorities will not tolerate attempts to stop people from carrying out lawful activities.
Taiwan’s intellectual property right and trademark agencies also said there was no need for Lam to worry about the trade name. Under the island’s law, a place name cannot be trademarks so there is no issue with Lam using the Causeway Bay Books name, especially when he has added the word “Zhongshan” to the title.
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Opening the shop should also help settle Lam’s residential status.
Taiwanese law prevented Lam from seeking political asylum so he had been using a tourist permit to stay on the island, and had to leave every six months to renew it.
But now he will be able to apply for a work permit, which will help his application for permanent residency after three years.
He also said he was not worried about the bookshop’s prospects even though other booksellers in the island have been forced to close in recent years.
Lam said: “I won’t worry about it because what I am selling is for a selected group of readers who wants to read about things that can enlighten their views rather than general reading.”
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He said he also wants to sell books that could enlighten Taiwanese in their thoughts about China.
“Many Taiwanese people are not that aware of the political instability in Taiwan,” Lam said. He argued that although President Tsai Ing-wen had easily won re-election in January, “more than 5 million voters gave their ballots to a candidate who supports the Chinese communists” – a reference to Han Kuo-yu, the beaten candidate from the mainland-friendly Kuomintang.
Lam said he believed cross-strait relations would become even more strained during Tsai’s second term and the KMT’s 5 million supporters would be a source of instability.
“Fortunately, the recent outbreak of coronavirus pandemic has served as a buffer that avoids an imminent cross-strait confrontation for the time being,” he said.



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Human rights in China

Detained Hong Kong bookseller gets back to business in Taiwan

Lam Wing-kee will start trading on Saturday. Photo: Lawrence Chung

Lam Wing-kee and the Zhongshan Causeway Bay Book. SCMP/ Lawrence Chung

epa08373272 Lam Wing Kee, one of the publishers at Hong Kong's Causeway Bay Books which was closed under pressure from China in 2015, talks to a reporter at the Casueway Bay Books in Taipei, Taiwan, 20 April 2020. Lam is one of the five Causeway Bay Books publishers who were kidnapped by Chinese police for selling material critical of China's political elite. Lam fled to Taiwan in 2019 and raised money to reopen Causeway Bay Books so that people can better understand China and ponder the future of Hong Kongand Taiwan. The bookstore will open on 25 April.  EPA-EFE/DAVID CHANG

China complains to Sweden over ‘interfering’ demand for bookseller’s release

Detained bookseller Gui Minhai takes part in a media interview in Ningbo, Zhejiang province, last week. Photo: Simon Song

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Gui Minhai was arrested on Saturday at a train station near Beijing under the watch of two Swedish diplomatic staff. Illustration: Lau Ka-kuen

Sweden's Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom attends a foreign/defence affairs council at the European Council in Brussels on November 13, 2017. / AFP PHOTO / EMMANUEL DUNAND

EU Ambassador to China Mr. Hans Dietmar Schweisgut is pictured during an interview in the Embassy in Beijing. 26MAY17 SCMP / Simon Song

Hong Kong bookseller Gui Minhai ‘snatched’ by mainland Chinese authorities from train to Beijing

Hong Kong bookseller Gui Minhai was accompanied by two Swedish diplomats when he was snatched. Photo: Handout

***ONE TIME USE ONLY, PLEASE CLEAR THE COPYRIGHTS BEFORE RE-USE - OTUO*** Angela Gui, daughter of detained published Gui Minhai, testified in a US Congressional-Executive Commission on China in Washington on Tuesday, May 24th, 2016. SCMP Pictures (UNDATED HANDOUT)

Civic Party protest outside liaison office to urge release of the missing booksellers. 19JAN16 SCMP/ K. Y. Cheng

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China

Politics

Hong Kong


Lam Wing-kee was one of the five Causeway Bay booksellers who disappeared in 2015 and later appeared in custody in mainland China
He says a recent incident where he had red paint thrown over him will not deter him



Lam Wing-kee was one of the five Causeway Bay booksellers who disappeared in 2015 and later appeared in custody in mainland China.


China’s Communist Party

Hong Kong bookseller disappearances

Taiwan

Detained Hong Kong bookseller gets back to business in Taiwan

Lam Wing-kee was one of the five Causeway Bay booksellers who disappeared in 2015 and later appeared in custody in mainland China He says a recent incident where he had red paint thrown over him will not deter him

Lam Wing-kee was one of the five Causeway Bay booksellers who disappeared in 2015 and later appeared in custody in mainland China

He says a recent incident where he had red paint thrown over him will not deter him