China confirms missing Hong Kong publisher in mainland

News of his emergence in China came shortly after another Hong Kong publisher, Gui Minhai, appeared on Chinese state television, saying he had come to the mainland to confess to a crime he committed over a decade ago.

“It doesn’t seem that the public has been calmed”, Hong Kong parliament’s speaker Jasper Tsang told reporters late Monday.

Hong Kong (CNN)Hong Kong police say they have requested a meeting with bookseller Lee Bo, whose mysterious disappearance last month caused global uproar, after Chinese authorities confirmed his whereabouts. He is a naturalized Swedish citizen, and his disappearance prompted questions from the Swedish Embassy.

Oil companies are also among the biggest decliners in Hong Kong, with an index tracking energy stocks there slumping more than 6 per cent. Given this drastic change, it is entirely possible that security officials in Guangdong province, which adjoins Hong Kong, may think that they have a green light to take actions in the special administrative region which, after all, is an integral part of the “one country”.

Lee and Gui are two out of five Hong Kong publishers with connections to the Causeway Bay bookstore and Mighty Current publishers that have Mighty Current specializes in titles based on rumors about Chinese politicians and subjects considered off-limits by mainland Chinese publishing companies.

Included along with the message was a letter from Lee addressed to a Hong Kong “relevant government department”. Allegations that he went to the mainland for prostitution were groundless, Lee said. They said Guangdong officials also forwarded to them a letter from Lee to the Hong Kong government, with handwriting that Lee’s wife confirmed was his.

Sweden is continuing “to seek clarifications from the Chinese authorities” on Gui’s case, said Gabriella Augustsson, head of public diplomacy for the Swedish embassy in Beijing. However, he reportedly called his wife from Shenzhen days after he went missing, AP reported.

“We will continue to raise this case at the highest levels”, a British Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s spokesperson said in an email response to Reuters, referring to Lee.

Similarities between Lee and Gui’s confessions have led rights activists to believe that something was amiss.

Friend Bei Ling, president of the Independent Chinese Pen Center of which Gui has been a member since 2006, said Gui was involved in such an accident, but would never have turned himself in.

“I still think he was abducted”, said Angela Gui, 21, in a telephone interview from Britain, where she is studying.