TAIPEI — In 2015, Lam Wing-kee was managing Causeway Bay Books, a bookstore he had founded in Hong Kong that sold, alongside serious works, some gossipy titles prohibited by the Chinese authorities. That October, he and four associates were abducted by China’s Central Case Examination Group, set up to prosecute those felt to be against the mainland’s ruling Communist Party.
They were put into custody for months. Lam and his associates believed their abduction was linked to the intended publication of a book that disclosed the secretive personal relationships of Chinese leader Xi Jinping and other sensitive material.
The abductions were part of Chinese efforts under Xi to rein in press freedom in Hong Kong. In 2013, 73-year-old publisher Yiu Man-tin, who was working on a book about Xi, was detained and sentenced to 10 years for “smuggling ordinary goods.” In 2014, two editors at magazines that featured loosely sourced articles about Chinese political leaders were also imprisoned, before being convicted of “operating an illegal business” and sentenced in 2016.
“I didn’t expect myself to be China’s next target,” Lam Wing-kee tells the Nikkei Asian Review.
After eight months of detention in China, the slender and bespectacled Lam jumped bail in June 2016 while on a visit to Hong Kong to retrieve a computer database. Now, aged 64, when he could be retiring, he has started all over again in Taiwan — new life, new bookshop.
Lam at a protest march in Hong Kong in June 2016.
© Reuters
Life in Hong Kong after jumping bail was very difficult for Lam. “Whenever I went out alone, I shielded my face with masks and was always alert for potential stalkers coming from any direction,” he says. “Sometimes I had to cut short my strolls, knowing someone nearby was following me.”
Despite this, he joined public protests at home and also testified at a U.S. congressional hearing in 2017, pleading for China to release fellow abductee Gui Min-hai, publisher Yiu Man-tin and Taiwanese activist Lee Ming-che.
But constant fear of being sent back to China overwhelmed him and when the Hong Kong government proposed a bill that would allow people to be extradited to the mainland in February 2019, sparking last year’s six-month-long protests, he decided to flee to Taiwan.
He does not plan to muddle along or retire but is devoting all his energy to resuscitating Causeway Bay Books in Taipei. “The bookstore is symbolic in defying Chinese authoritarian rule while underpinning democracy in Taiwan,” Lam says. He hopes to turn it into a supportive hub for the increasing number of Hong Kong immigrants, including hundreds of young protesters, fleeing to Taiwan in fear of being prosecuted.
Top: Members of pro-democracy group Demosisto, from left, Agnes Chow Ting, Joshua Wong and Oscar Lai march to the Chinese central government’s liaison office in Hong Kong on June 17, 2016, to protest Lam’s abduction. Bottom: Lam’s supporters gather outside Causeway Bay Books the following day.
© AP
Planned since 2017, Lam’s new store has been marred by interference. A Hong Kong financial sponsor pulled out of the project as he and his wife, who had businesses in China, were both investigated. Meanwhile, a Taiwanese man secretly sold the sponsor list to a China-backed newspaper in Hong Kong. Assuming Lam was ignorant of his plot, the man later approached him several times to offer funding to co-launch the bookstore, which Lam rejected as “poison laced with sugar.”
The bookstore finally gained momentum after a crowdfunding campaign in Taipei that raised nearly $200,000 in late 2019.
But days before the scheduled bookstore opening on April 25, Lam received a letter from a lawyer representing a newly registered bookstore that accused him of registering a similar name to compete unfairly in the book business, while also infringing on its trademark. He was also attacked by masked men throwing red paint; they were later arrested and investigated.
“It’s ridiculous that a bookstore could be a target of threat,” says Lam. “The intimidation comes in the form of red paint today, but what if it turns into knives, guns and blood tomorrow?” He says he suspects Chinese Communists are behind these two incidents.
Top: The Taipei coffee shop where an unidentified man attacked Lam with red paint on April 21. Bottom: Lam speaks to reporters after the attack.
© AP
If all goes well, the 700 sq. foot shop will stock over 10,000 books, including many intensively researched, thought-provoking academic titles on greater China, Xinjiang, Tibet and elsewhere in Asia. Others range from weighty tomes on Marxism and schools of Western thought to highbrow world politics, culture, economics and European arts and literature.
There is little place for the stories on scandals or the colorful private lives of Chinese officials ubiquitous at Hong Kong’s newsstands and popular in his old bookstore.
“The intimidation comes in the form of red paint today, but what if it turns into knives, guns and blood tomorrow?”
Lam Wing-kee
“Understanding China’s 5,000 years of autocratic traditions and comparing them with the Western democratic developments will prepare ourselves to deal with China,” Lam says in strong Cantonese-accented Mandarin. “It’s pivotal given its ingrained political and cultural heritages will still impact Hong Kong, Taiwan, Xinjiang and Tibet for many years to come.”
The bookstore also plans to attract children, hoping to inspire their love of books from a young age.
“We used to tell a bedtime story every day for our boy since he was very little. It turned out that 10 minutes a day can go a long way,” says Lam, a father of two, describing how some excellent titles on hard topics he sourced went missing as his son grew older. He knew that his son “stole” them but felt pleased about the astute taste for books his son cultivated.
Lam is devoting all his energy to resuscitating Causeway Bay Books in Taipei. “The bookstore is symbolic in defying Chinese authoritarian rule while underpinning democracy in Taiwan,” he says. (Courtesy of Hsu Shih-kai)
But in Taiwan, he finds it alarming that the younger generation is either ignorant of or indifferent toward China and how its systems function, despite their country being under perpetual Chinese threat. Certain Taiwanese bookstores operating across the Strait self-censor, removing titles that may spark China’s ire.
As many independent bookstores in Taiwan have closed due to the rise of online competitors, e-books and promotional campaigns by large chains, Lam, a veteran in the book business of over 30 years, remains upbeat about his project.
“All too often, bookstores are deemed merely as venues where commodities are traded,” he says. “If booksellers struggle for survival, it’s because they fail to identify the unique values bookstores can offer.” He is confident he can gauge readers’ appetites, claiming that over 90% of the books he sourced from Guangdong sold during bumper years.
In a cafe in Taipei, Lam sports a relaxed posture and easy grin barely seen in his earlier TV appearances. But he becomes guarded and serious when approached by a stranger.
Lam in Causeway Bay Books in 2009, top photo, and in a Taipei bookstore in April 2019. (Top photo courtesy of Lam Wing-kee, bottom photo Reuters).
Trauma left by his experience in China has come back to haunt him. “I had this recurring nightmare three times — that group of men that abducted me in China rushed toward me, handcuffed me and dragged me into a seven-seater. … It is horrifying,” he says.
Despite feeling nostalgic for cha chaan teng (“tea restaurants”) and luncheon meat with egg noodles back in Hong Kong, his chance of a homecoming is slim.
“Lam can return to Hong Kong should he wish to, but the city is no longer a safe place for him,” says Sang Pu, a solicitor and political commentator in Hong Kong. Despite withdrawing the controversial extradition bill, says Sang, the Hong Kong government has invoked and will invoke regulations to further clamp down on dissidents like Lam.
While Lam has severed contact with his former bookstore associates for safety’s sake, he knows Lee Bo, the bookstore’s shareholder who was abducted from a Hong Kong warehouse, can now travel freely to China, although his phones are tapped. Two other associates are known to be barred from returning to Hong Kong.
Despite feeling nostalgic for cha chaan teng (“tea restaurants”) and luncheon meat with egg noodles back in Hong Kong, Lam’s chance of a homecoming is slim. (Courtesy of Hsu Shih-kai)
He was saddened by a Chinese court’s recent 10-year sentence for Gui Min-hai for “illegally providing intelligence overseas” and by the arrest of Hong Kong media mogul Jimmy Lai in February over his role in a pro-democracy protest last year.
“It’s absurd,” says Lam. Between Gui’s two-year detention and apprehension shortly after his release, “what intelligence could he obtain and share with foreign countries?”
While Lam is not upbeat about the city’s outlook given its small area, proximity to China and lack of military capability, he urges Hong Kong not to give up hope.
“Our fight for freedom and democracy must go on even from outside of the city,” he says. “But don’t expect a revolution to bear fruit in merely one or two years. Be ready to fight for 20 or 30 years.”