DISCRETION is not a trait often associated with the glitzy shopfronts of Hong Kong’s Causeway Bay, but the low-key doorway of a small bookshop belies the store’s recent notoriety. Tucked between a pharmacy and a clothes shop, Causeway Bay Books has become the centrepiece of a mystery involving alleged kidnappings by Chinese agents, and of a fierce debate in Hong Kong about the territory’s autonomy under Chinese rule.
Almost all the books in the shop’s window-display feature Chinese leaders on their covers. The business’s website lists titles such as “The Collapse of Xi Jinping in 2017” and “The Inside Story of the Big Explosion in Tianjin”. The door to the shop, up two flights of stairs covered in flyers, is now locked; the trickle of people going up are journalists and passers-by curious for news. Five men connected to the shop have disappeared from three different jurisdictions: mainland China, Thailand and, most recently, Hong Kong. Many in the former British territory fear that secret agents from the mainland may have been involved, and that the men were targeted because of the shop’s gossipy books.
When China...Continue reading
Source: China http://ift.tt/1PL7bqQ
EmoticonEmoticon