From HKFP…
Hong Kong independent bookseller Pong Yat-ming and three of his staff have reportedly been arrested on suspicion of selling seditious titles, including a biography of jailed media tycoon Jimmy Lai.
…Citing anonymous sources, the reports said police also raided Pong’s Sham Shui Po bookstore, Book Punch, and seized seditious publications, including Lai’s 2024 biography, The Troublemaker: How Jimmy Lai Became a Billionaire, Hong Kong’s Greatest Dissident, and China’s Most Feared Critic, written by Mark Clifford, a former director of Lai’s Next Digital media conglomerate.
Pong Yat-ming is the same bookseller charged with running an ‘unregistered school’ for hosting a Spanish class at his shop, after the Beijing-run newspaper Wen Wei Po accused him of ‘soft resistance’. Now this. Mark Clifford was at the Far Eastern Economic Review back in the day and later editor in chief of the Standard and the SCMP, has a PhD from HKU, was executive director of the Asia Business Council, and is author of several books on Asia. He is also president of the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong. He discusses his book on Jimmy Lai in this 2025 video. An interview with him from two weeks ago is here.
Is selling the book illegal? Does it threaten the security of the People’s Republic of China? If so, how? Is it a crime to own a copy?
Every day, another lovely present from our patriots!
For sure, this will be reflected in an improved economy and international standing!
Send more day visitors armed with Xiaohongshu so we can have long queues in front of several popular attractions!
To paraphrase Lord Dunning from yesterday: “If they want you, they’ll have you.”
As long as the hard currency money laundry is humming, there is no news.
Meanwhile the veneer that is HK’s cultural and artistic appeal – Art Basel et al – gets ramped up over the next few days.
@HKJC Irregular
Ah, but you see Art Basel is just part of the bigger picture (!). Along with Skytopia this “…represents a significant addition to our art ecosystem and will provide family offices …facilities to store and appreciate their collections.” Thus saith Christopher Hui Ching-yu (please don’t tell me you don’t know who he is.) So HK is a one-stop shop for buying, storing and viewing in hoi-polloi free comfort part of your (tax exempt) family wealth (sorry, “legacy”.)