Hong Kong authorities have been checking for “banned books” delivered from Taiwan, a Taiwanese official said, prompting publishers on the self-ruled island to self-censor before sending titles.
Liang Wen-chieh, deputy minister of Taiwan’s highest policy body, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC), said a press conference on Thursday that Hong Kong’s national security authorities had been monitoring imported publications for banned books with a “potentially large reach”.
“Until now, they have not published a list of books they consider banned,” Liang said in Mandarin. “We can only collect information on a case-by-case basis about books and their nature.”
Liang’s remarks came after Hong Kong’s national security police raided two independent bookstores last week and arrested five operators for displaying and selling suspected publications.
One of the titles considered problematic was said to be the Chinese edition of Let Only Red Flowers Bloom: Identity and Belonging in Xi Jinping’s Chinaoriginally written in English by American journalist Emily Feng and recently published by a Taiwanese house.
The MAC said Hong Kong authorities had inspected “almost every shipment of books” from Taiwan since March, compared with a check every few months in the past. according to for local media.
Liang said Thursday that Taiwanese publishers had self-censored before sending books to Hong Kong.
“I can only say that Hong Kong now is very different from the city we knew before,” he said.
This week, a Hong Kong logistics firm’s branch in Taiwan reportedly told customers this would not send “banned books” to the city to comply with the national security law imposed by Beijing.
Jaguar Logistics said in a notice to customers that it would also not ship to bookstores under investigation by the Hong Kong government, citing four bookstores that had been raided by national security police this year, according to Taiwanese media outlet Formosa Television.
Hong Kong’s Customs and Excise Department told HKFP on Wednesday it would not comment on remarks made by individual organisations.
In an emailed response, she said she would strongly guard national security, adding that she would stop shipments suspected of containing rebel objects and refer them to police for investigation.
Beijing introduced national security legislation directly into Hong Kong’s mini-constitution in June 2020 after a year of pro-democracy protests and riots. He criminalized it subversion, secession, cooperation with foreign forces and acts of terrorism – broadly defined to include disruption of transportation and other infrastructure. This move gave the police sweeping new powers and led to hundreds ARRESTS BETWEEN new legal precedentswhile dozens civil society groups disappeared. The authorities say so restore stability and peace in the city, rejecting criticism from trading partners, AND AND NGO.
