Memoirs of a Loser 192: The Weird Tale of the Causeway Bay Bookstore

On the morning of New Year's Day in 2016, I read a piece of news: Chinese exiled poet Bei Ling told Apple Daily on a long-distance call that he had received an email stating that "Li Bo is missing and his life and death are unknown." I immediately called Mrs. Li Bo and asked her if she wanted to talk to me. She said she wanted to. We live close by and have an appointment at a restaurant.

In 2013, I was going to publish "Hong Kong Thought". A friend introduced me to Li Bo and said he could publish it. When we met, I realized that his wife was Cai Jiaping, whom I had known for more than 30 years. At that time, she worked in the editorial department of Sanlian Publishing House and wrote essays under the pseudonym Shu Fei. Now retired. Li Bo is running a company called Mighty Current Media. He suggested that I self-publish the book, and he provided the ISBN and distribution. In this way, we worked together for two or three years, and I published several books. We get together and chat a lot.

I met Cai Jiaping at noon on New Year's Day. I've never seen her so helpless. She said that Li Bo would go home for dinner at seven o'clock every night on weekdays. I didn't come back for dinner on the 30th, and I didn't answer my phone. She received a call from Shenzhen on the caller ID very late. Li Bo spoke to her in Mandarin unusually, apparently wanting the people beside her to hear what was being said. Li Bo said that he would not be able to go home for the time being due to his cooperation with the investigation. He also said that if he cooperated, "it can be taken lightly." "Easy"? That means what crime did he commit? Later, he called again and said, "You may already know what's going on" and "don't make it a big issue."

She said that because of this, after the news of Bei Ling was exposed, she refused all interviews and did not dare to report the case.

I told her it had come to light. Even the society knows it. If you report a case, you cannot avoid media interviews, and reporters will also ask the SAR government about this matter. After the media riots, the CCP investigators will at least handle it with caution, so that "life and death are not known". Is it ironic that Li Bo called her "don't make a big noise" on the phone?

Cai Jiaping agreed with me almost immediately. That afternoon, she asked a family member to accompany her to the North Point Police Station to report the crime. I told the newspaper reporter to wait in front of the police station. She was interviewed. That night and the next morning, the media was flooded with the news. Public opinion pointed out that according to the Basic Law, only Hong Kong law enforcement officers have the right to enforce the law in Hong Kong, and it is illegal for law enforcement officers outside Hong Kong to enforce the law in Hong Kong. Best of all was the response of Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying, who called on the missing person to provide information on his disappearance. It's like calling "Raise your hand if you're absent" during the class roll call.

This is the beginning of the exposure of the Causeway Bay Bookstore incident, and my little participation. Subsequent developments have been extensively reported, and there is a lot of information on web searches. I will not say much.

Here I just want to talk about the social background of the incident, and some of the situations I gradually heard later.

Since mainlanders came to Hong Kong to travel freely, in addition to bringing prosperity to gold shops and pharmacies, it has also spawned the industry of "banned books in mainland China". There are a number of publishing houses in Hong Kong that publish books about the inside story and secrets of the CCP's political disputes, especially the corruption and pornographic scandals of the leadership. Airports and downtown newsstands are full of such books.

Few people in Hong Kong read these books. They are sold to mainland independent travelers. There are more than 40 million mainland tourists every year, and there are at least one million people who are interested in these books. Not only do they buy it for themselves, but they also buy it for their friends. The publication of these books is therefore lucrative. Most of the writers of the book are writers hired in the mainland, either based on some gossip or just their random fabrications. According to the publisher, 70 to 80 percent of the content is fabricated.

In addition to the large number of tourists from mainland China, there are several conditions for the formation of a Chinese political book market in Hong Kong. First, the mainland does not have freedom of the press, but Hong Kong has it; second, Hong Kong is the closest society to the mainland that uses Chinese, and it is easy to write and publish Chinese books; third, the first comment on the Chinese by Gary Locke, the former U.S. ambassador to China, is: "Very clever, but very much believe the rumors". Its meaning is: very smart and very suspicious of non-rumours, believe rumors because rumors are more reliable than non-rumours, non-rumours are often lies.

In a free and open society, publishing a secret book about leaders does not provide any real evidence, no one will believe it, and there will be no market, only the publishers themselves will be harmed - if there is no profit, they will lose business. reputation. But it is different for a closed society, because the life and behavior of leaders, and there are no open disputes but secret battles between leaders, these are all state secrets, so any disclosure, whether true or false, will make people feel Interested and will believe.

Those who believe in these secrets are not only ordinary people, but also many cadres, including those who influence the power struggle. It is said that the book that caused the trouble at the Causeway Bay Bookstore is "Six Women of Xi Jinping", which mainly describes the relationship between Xi Jinping and a female TV anchor when he was the secretary of the Fujian Provincial Party Committee.

Li Bo, Gui Minhai, and Lu Bo each hold one-third of the shares of Mighty Stream Media. Li Bo and Gui Minhai published their respective books, and Lu Bo was in charge of business operations. Li and Gui did not interfere with each other in what manuscripts and books they produced.

It is reported that the book about Xi Jinping and female anchors is a draft of Gui Minhai's group. Lu Bo and another salesman of Jiliu, Zhang Zhiping, disappeared in Shenzhen on October 14, 2015. Neither of them knew what books would be published, so it was impossible to ask them why. So, on October 17, Gui Minhai disappeared in Thailand. Four men tried to take the computer from his apartment, but the administrators stopped him. On October 24, the manager of the Causeway Bay Bookstore, Lin Rongji, was detained while crossing the border in Shenzhen. He also doesn't know what books will be published. The only person among the four who was related to the book was Gui Minhai, but the investigators could not obtain the manuscript and did not know how to prevent the printing and listing of the book.

So, finally on December 30, Li Bo was kidnapped in Hong Kong. All Mighty Stream people have their hands on it, and after repeated reviews day and night, they can always find the manuscript! but no. Because Li Bo also did not know about the book.

Does Gui Minhai's computer have this manuscript? Who is the author of the book? It's all a mystery. But someone in the know told me that an important plot in the book is that a certain woman and her son who was born for a celebrity suddenly disappeared from the world. And the task force that detained the five people is said to be the office of a certain lady whose rank is higher than that of Guoan. This is not mentioned in all the news reports.

These rumors are unsubstantiated, and certainly not credible. But the abduction of people in Hong Kong was condemned by Hong Kong and the international media, and some pointed out that Long Yan was furious: Why can't you arrest people in Hong Kong after taking back the sovereignty? Therefore, in 2019, the SAR government proposed the "Send to China" Ordinance.

(Original post on September 2, 2022)

"Memoirs of a Loser" serial catalog (continuously updated)

184. Can Hong Kong believe this person?

185. Anyone except Leung Chun-ying

186. Days and Nights of the Umbrella Movement

187. The opposition between pan-democratic and local

188. One of my most satisfying interviews

189. The Fish Ball Revolution and Liang Tianqi

190. Thinking of Liang Tianqi

191. The courage of young people is ashamed

192. The Weird Story of the Causeway Bay Bookstore