Missing publisher sent fax from China, pal says

The Hong Kong publisher whose disappearance has caused a major rift between Hong Kong and Beijing has written to a colleague to confirm that he is in China, where he is “cooperating with the authorities with an investigation.”

Lee Bo, whose publishing company specializes in books critical of Beijing’s Communist Party leaders, vanished Wednesday in what lawmakers and experts say looks increasingly like an illegal abduction by Chinese police. He was the fifth member of the Mighty Current publishing house to vanish, amid reports that it was planning a gossipy book about the love life of Chinese President Xi Jinping.

In a fax to a colleague at Causeway Bay Books, Lee claimed to have traveled to China “by my own means, to cooperate with an investigation carried out by relevant department,” calling his situation “good” and “normal.” But the handwritten fax, published by Taiwan’s Central News Agency, raised as many questions as it answered, because Hong Kong police have said that they have no record of Lee passing through immigration, and his wife has said that he was not carrying any travel documents with him when he vanished.

In China, “assisting the authorities with an investigation” frequently equates to detention, suspicion of criminal activity and, sometimes, even torture. With the case garnering considerable international attention, the suspicion remains that Lee was abducted by Chinese police and was pressured by authorities into sending the fax in an attempt to calm the situation.