A number of people connected with Hong Kong’s Anti-China publisher Causeway Bay Books have gone missing. A worker at Mighty Current Publishing, the parent company of Causeway Bay Books, went missing in mid-October last year during his stay in China. At around the same time, the bookstore’s co-owner/writer also went missing from his holiday house in Thailand.

The High Possibility of Abductions By Chinese Authorities

On the 30th of December last year, a shareholder of Causeway Bay Books, Lee Bo, went missing. Letters in Lee Bo’s hand were delivered to his wife for 3 days after his disappearance, explaining that he went to Mainland China out of his own will ‘to help with some research’, and that he wouldn’t be back for a while.
The phrase ‘to help with some research’ was a roundabout way of saying that he was being taken into custody. In fact, Chinese public safety authorities in Hong Kong held Lee Bo against his will, and took him to Mainland China.

Hong Kong democratic politician Albert Ho announced that this incident has had a shocking impact on Hong Kong’s citizens. Ho said that there had been a plot amongst the missing persons to publish books about Chairman Xi Jinping’s ex-lovers, and that the arrests were conducted in order to prevent them from carrying out their plan.

Freedom for Hong Kong and Its Unique Autonomy

In 1997, Hong Kong was released from the “One Country, Two Systems” ideal enforced on China from England. Hong Kong is now an Autonomous Special Administrative Region, and the Mainland Chinese have been allowed Hong Kong to have unique political and economic systems.

To maintain them, freedom of speech must be guaranteed in Hong Kong. In reality, however, freedoms are slowly being taken away. Chinese authorities are keeping strict watches over Anti-China politicians, journalists, and businessmen in Hong Kong, threatening their freedom of publicity and speech and even Hong Kong’s autonomous political system.

In addition, it has been said that China is now keeping watch over Chinese people who have moved to other countries such as the U.S. and Australia from China and Hong Kong.

The Umbrella Revolution that arose over universal suffrage in Hong Kong in the fall of 2014 is still fresh in our minds. People around the world must not stop aiding Hong Kong to maintain its freedom.

These incidents are bound to affect the Taiwan Presidential Election to be conducted later this month. The international community must criticize China for depriving the freedom of its people, and must protect Taiwan from Chinese domination.