Under shadow of Beijing’s security law, Taiwan president thanks Hong Kong bookseller for supporting democracy

Name: Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen visits bookseller who fled Hong Kong
Uploaded: 2020-05-29T11:00:19.000Z
Duration: 1 min 58 s
Description: Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen visits bookseller who fled Hong Kong

Tsai Ing-wen visited exiled Hong Kong bookseller a day after NPC voted in favour of legislation

Lam Wing-kee said fleeing Hongkongers saw Taiwan as a step towards applying for asylum in the West

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President Tsai Ing-wen (centre) shows her support for Hong Kong bookseller Lam Wing-kee (right) with Lin Fei-fan, deputy secretary general of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party. Photo: Taiwan presidential office/AFP

Lawrence Chung

Published: 7:00pm, 29 May 2020Updated: 12:33am, 30 May 2020

Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen visited exiled Hong Kong bookseller Lam Wing-kee on Friday in a show of support for Hongkongers amid Beijing’s plan to introduce a controversial national security law.

Her visit came a day after China’s legislature, the National People’s Congress, voted in favour of a resolution to initiate the legal process for a national security law to be imposed on Hong Kong, despite concerns from the United States, the European Union and elsewhere that the move would erode human rights, freedom and autonomy in the city.

“We want to thank the bookstore boss Lam Wing-kee for his persistent support of human rights, freedom and democracy in Hong Kong from the past to the present stage,” Tsai told Lam, who recently reopened the now-defunct Hong Kong Causeway Bay Books in Taipei.

Tsai said on behalf of all Taiwanese people, she welcomed Lam to stay in Taiwan where he could bolster the island’s efforts to further freedom and democracy.

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Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen visits bookseller who fled Hong Kong

Lam, one of the five shareholders and staff at Hong Kong’s Causeway Bay Books, fled to Taiwan in April last year after he was detained by Chinese agents for eight months in 2015 for selling books critical of the Chinese leadership.