A Hong Kong bookseller who was thought to have been abducted and taken to mainland China says that he smuggled himself across the border to assist an investigation into illegal book trading and is “safe and free” in China.
Lee Bo, 65, who has Hong Kong and British nationality, said that he was renouncing his British citizenship because it was complicating his case. In an interview on Phoenix Television, in which China’s state broadcaster has a stake, Mr Lee appeared calm and smiled as he denied reports that he had been abducted or “gone missing”.
His disappearance in late December raised concerns that he and four other men had been targeted by Beijing because they sold books on political gossip about Communist leaders.
The British government concluded that he had been “involuntarily removed” from Hong Kong, which has no record of his leaving through regular channels, and Philip Hammond, the foreign secretary, called the incident a “serious breach” of the “one country, two systems” rule designed to protect freedoms after Beijing took control of the former British colony in 1997.
Mr Lee’s statement that he entered China voluntarily will convince few in Hong Kong. In recent months China has forced many detainees to make televised confessions. Mr Lee asked that his location remained secret and said that it was “inconvenient” to reveal exactly how he had got there.
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“Why have I acted so mysteriously?” he told Phoenix, a mainland news website.
“It’s because I’ve had to assist with a mainland Chinese investigation and it required testifying against some people” who, if they found out, could threaten his family’s safety, he said.
Mr Lee said he “sneaked across” the border illegally, without using the home return permit that many Hong Kong citizens use to visit China, and had intended to return the same, secret way.