The wife of Lee Bo (李波), 65, a shareholder of Causeway Bay Books (銅鑼灣圖書), who went missing from Hong Kong late last month, has told police she has been able to visit him in China, Hong Kong police said yesterday.
It is the latest twist in the disappearances of Bo and four other men connected with the bookstore and Hong Kong publisher Mighty Current (巨流) that have intensified fears that Beijing is clamping down on Hong Kong’s freedom of speech.
Lee had previously written that he returned voluntarily to China in letters to his wife, but his supporters believe he was kidnapped and smuggled there.
Hong Kong police said in a statement yesterday that Lee’s wife had told them she had met him on Saturday afternoon at a guesthouse in China.
She said he was healthy and in good spirits, and that he was assisting in an investigation as a witness.
She gave no further details regarding the location of the meeting or the nature of the investigation.
She also handed over a letter from Lee addressed to Hong Kong police. The police statement said its content was similar to his previous letters.
The latest development might raise more questions than it answers.
It is still unclear where Lee and the other four men are exactly, what the investigation involves and whether Lee is detained or is there voluntarily, as he has purportedly said in his letters.
Hong Kong police said they are continuing to investigate Lee’s case and had again asked police in China’s Guangdong Province to assist in arranging a meeting with Lee.
The circumstances of Lee’s case have led many to suspect Chinese security agents crossed into Hong Kong to abduct him, in breach of the “one country, two systems” principle Beijing promised to uphold after taking control of the territory from Britain in 1997.
According to local news reports, Lee was last seen at his company’s warehouse on Dec. 30 last year and did not have a China travel permit, but days after he went missing, he called his wife to say he was in Guangdong.
The other four men have disappeared since October last year from China and Thailand.
Mighty Current specialized in racy, but thinly sourced titles on Chinese political intrigue and scandals, as well as other topics Beijing deems off limits for Chinese publishers.
The combined effect of the monsoon, the outer rim of Typhoon Fengshen and a low-pressure system is expected to bring significant rainfall this week to various parts of the nation, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The heaviest rain is expected to occur today and tomorrow, with torrential rain expected in Keelung’s north coast, Yilan and the mountainous regions of Taipei and New Taipei City, the CWA said. Rivers could rise rapidly, and residents should stay away from riverbanks and avoid going to the mountains or engaging in water activities, it said. Scattered showers are expected today in central and
People can preregister to receive their NT$10,000 (US$325) cash distributed from the central government on Nov. 5 after President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday signed the Special Budget for Strengthening Economic, Social and National Security Resilience, the Executive Yuan told a news conference last night. The special budget, passed by the Legislative Yuan on Friday last week with a cash handout budget of NT$236 billion, was officially submitted to the Executive Yuan and the Presidential Office yesterday afternoon. People can register through the official Web site at https://10000.gov.tw to have the funds deposited into their bank accounts, withdraw the funds at automated teller
COOPERATION: Taiwan is aligning closely with US strategic objectives on various matters, including China’s rare earths restrictions, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Taiwan could deal with China’s tightened export controls on rare earth metals by turning to “urban mining,” a researcher said yesterday. Rare earth metals, which are used in semiconductors and other electronic components, could be recovered from industrial or electronic waste to reduce reliance on imports, National Cheng Kung University Department of Resources Engineering professor Lee Cheng-han (李政翰) said. Despite their name, rare earth elements are not actually rare — their abundance in the Earth’s crust is relatively high, but they are dispersed, making extraction and refining energy-intensive and environmentally damaging, he said, adding that many countries have opted to
PEACE AND STABILITY: Maintaining the cross-strait ‘status quo’ has long been the government’s position, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Taiwan is committed to maintaining the cross-strait “status quo” and seeks no escalation of tensions, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said yesterday, rebutting a Time magazine opinion piece that described President William Lai (賴清德) as a “reckless leader.” The article, titled “The US Must Beware of Taiwan’s Reckless Leader,” was written by Lyle Goldstein, director of the Asia Program at the Washington-based Defense Priorities think tank. Goldstein wrote that Taiwan is “the world’s most dangerous flashpoint” amid ongoing conflicts in the Middle East and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He said that the situation in the Taiwan Strait has become less stable
RSS