Hong Kong’s political booksellers face ‘extermination’ threat as China’s Communist Party crackdown and online competition hit sales
Already struggling to compete against the online market, Hong Kong’s booksellers face an uncertain future amid ongoing threats
The market for publications critical of the Chinese Communist Party, already struggling to compete against an online market, has taken a further hit following the mysterious disappearance of five booksellers, according to publishers and vendors.
Bei Ling, president of the US-based Independent Chinese PEN Centre and a close associate of Gui Minhai – the first of the booksellers from Causeway Bay Books to go missing, last October – said a direct hit on Hong Kong’s publishing industry had always been expected, but not this soon into the 50 years of “one country, two systems”, due to expire in 2047.
His remark followed revelations in Britain’s Sunday Times that 14 publishers and 21 publications in Hong Kong had been identified as targets in an internal party document.
The Times quoted the ‘Guangdong Plan’ document from April 2015, in which a strategy to ‘exterminate’ banned books at their sources in Hong Kong and Macau was revealed.
The document is said to identify 14 publishing houses and 21 publications in Hong Kong as targets.
“Intensify the external composite counter-attack on banned books,” the document is reported as saying.