The escort for rebel mainland blogger Han Han's visit to the Hong Kong Book Fair suggested he was a serious threat.
According to a source at the fair, Han was accompanied by special agents from five mainland units: public security, state security, police special security, the Shanghai government's fifth bureau and the China Writers' Association.
But then 28-year-old Han, a cult figure among the mainland's post-80s generation, often upsets the authorities with his independent and critical commentary (his Hong Kong visit was almost scuppered by mainland officials worried about what he would say).
He didn't disappoint the 1,800 people who turned up for his talk at the week-long fair. True to form, the Shanghai native spoke his mind on sensitive subjects, including the Tiananmen crackdown of June 4, 1989. Asked if he would ever consider joining the government, he quipped derisively: 'I think I would castrate myself first.'
This year's fair, which finished earlier this week, featured three mainland writers popular with Chinese readers but regularly censored for their dissenting views. Besides Han, there was Beijing-based Zhang Yihe, whose books on cultural figures are banned; and He Weifang, a Peking University law professor whose advocacy of constitutional reform had him assigned to a teaching position in a remote Xinjiang institution last year.
Three out of 90 writers invited to seminars and forums may not seem significant; nonetheless, their presence prompted some observers to speculate whether the book fair might become a platform for mainland dissidents.
