How the Case of a Hong Kong Bookseller Has Soured China’s Ties With Sweden

How the Case of a Hong Kong Bookseller Has Soured China’s Ties With Sweden
Freed Hong Kong bookseller Lam Wing-kee stands next to a placard with a picture of Gui Minhai, Hong Kong, June 18, 2016 (AP photo by Kin Cheung).

Editor’s Note: Every Wednesday, WPR Newsletter and Engagement Editor Benjamin Wilhelm curates the week’s top news and expert analysis on China.

A court in eastern China on Monday sentenced a Chinese-born Swedish bookseller to 10 years in prison for “illegally providing intelligence” to overseas parties. Gui Minhai’s case drew international attention to the lengths that Beijing is willing to go to silence criticism, even from abroad, while souring ties between China and Sweden.

Gui was part-owner of Mighty Current Media, a Hong Kong-based publishing house known for its politically sensitive books about top Chinese Communist Party leaders. In 2015, he mysteriously vanished from his vacation home in Thailand, only to reappear months later on Chinese state television, delivering a “scripted confession in which he suggested he had secretly smuggled himself to China to turn himself in for his involvement in a 2003 car crash,” The Washington Post reports. Gui was released from custody a year later but was not allowed to leave China. In 2018, he was snatched from a train outside Beijing by Chinese plainclothes police officers, despite being escorted by Swedish diplomats.

Keep reading for free!

Get instant access to the rest of this article by submitting your email address below. You'll also get access to three articles of your choice each month and our free newsletter:

Or, Subscribe now to get full access.

Already a subscriber? Log in here .

What you’ll get with an All-Access subscription to World Politics Review:

A WPR subscription is like no other resource — it’s like having a personal curator and expert analyst of global affairs news. Subscribe now, and you’ll get:

  • Immediate and instant access to the full searchable library of tens of thousands of articles.
  • Daily articles with original analysis, written by leading topic experts, delivered to you every weekday.
  • Regular in-depth articles with deep dives into important issues and countries.
  • The Daily Review email, with our take on the day’s most important news, the latest WPR analysis, what’s on our radar, and more.
  • The Weekly Review email, with quick summaries of the week’s most important coverage, and what’s to come.
  • Completely ad-free reading.

And all of this is available to you when you subscribe today.

More World Politics Review