Here is an update on the dramatic new turn for the worse for Gui Minhai, the HK-based published and writer kidnapped from Thailand in October 2015, then detained in China and forced (twice, in 2016) to make fake confessions on Chinese state TV, and detained (while his HK bookstore and publishing business was destroyed and silenced) until mid-October 2017 when the Chinese authorities said he was free.
Gui is a Swedish citizen only, and on Jan. 20, my country’s embassy had arranged for him to travel to our embassy and see a doctor for the grave signs of illness that he has developed while in Chinese detention. On the train there, in the presence of the two Swedish diplomats accompanying him on the trip, Gui was suddenly seized and hauled off by ten plainclothes men. It took China two weeks to acknowledge it was indeed China’s government (and not some random rogue gang) that had seized him again, despite their words. When, finally, China’s government acknowledged thru their own foreign ministry that it did this, they also issued threats against our country, in the manner typical of previous times China has intimidated other countries — such as it recently did to Norway and to others.
(Their own foreign ministry had evidently been kept in the dark, until given instructions to say these abominable things! For weeks after Gui was grabbed from the train, the FM could offer nothing in reply to the many questions from foreign correspondents in Beijing – consequently they deleted all references to those many questions from their official transcripts of press briefings! talk about self-censorship! — while they tried to say it was “not their department”! )
Now, both Sweden as well as the ambassadors to China of the European Union and Germany have issued sharp statements demanding Gui’s release, and deploring the Chinese actions, especially because of the grave concern these actions inevitably prompt as regards the safety, freedom and lawful treatment of not just Swedish citizens, but all EU citizens (and all others, indeed). See:
http://www.government.se/statements/2018/02/statement-by-margot-wallstrom-regarding-the-detention-of-the-swedish-citizen-gui-minhai/
https://www.thelocal.se/20180207/that-chinas-authorities-treat-an-eu-citizen-this-way-is-without-precedence
http://www.france24.com/en/20180206-chinas-arrest-swedish-bookseller-could-set-dangerous-precedent-germany
http://www.zeit.de/politik/ausland/2018-02/festnahme-china-eu-botschafter-rechte
and
http://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/verhaftung-von-gui-minhai-vom-erdboden-verschluckt-1.3855887 (this article in Germany’s biggest paper includes an interview with myself)
Also, meanwhile, Gui Minhai was awarded the Voltaire Prize of the International Publishing Association,
https://www.mhpbooks.com/gui-minhai-his-whereabouts-unknown-wins-the-prix-voltaire-as-the-international-clamor-on-his-behalf-grows-louder/
https://publishingperspectives.com/2018/02/gui-minhai-publisher-awarded-2018-prix-voltaire-ipa/
https://publishingperspectives.com/2018/01/ipa-seizure-prix-voltaire-shortlisted-publisher-gui-minhai/
–in great sadness, and with the greatest concern for Gui Minhai in the face of torture, imprisonment, and disease.
On a personal note, it’s just been 40 years since I first started traveling from my country, Sweden, to China, and to study things Chinese.Today, I find it pretty awful to see China slide back into the worst manners and the worst cowardice of dictatorships. The sheer thuggery spells danger for anyone having to do with China, and not just for those with Asian looking faces.
Magnus Fiskesjö <nf42@cornell.edu>