![\"HK](\"http:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/files\/2016\/02\/HK-Books.png\")
These books about the Chinese president Xi Jinping are banned on the mainland but on sale in Hong Kong. Photograph: Kin Cheung\/AP<\/p><\/div>\n
The author of a provocative book about the private life of Chinese president Xi Jinping that some blame for Beijing\u2019s decision to seize five Hong Kong booksellers has urged China to release the men.<\/p>\n
Xi Nuo, a Chinese writer who is based in the United States, told the BBC he was one of two authors behind what is reportedly a largely fictitious work about the president\u2019s romantic life called Xi Jinping and His Lovers.<\/p>\n
Some believe the detention of the group \u2013 which includes Lee Bo, a British citizen, and Swedish passport-holder Gui Minhai \u2013 was designed to stop that book\u2019s publication and halt what the Communist party saw as a smear campaign against president Xi.<\/p>\n
Gui and Lee\u2019s Mighty Current publishing house had specialised in salacious but often thinly sourced expos\u00e9s about China\u2019s political elite.<\/p>\n
Speaking to the BBC, Xi Nuo, who is no relation to the Chinese president, said: \u201cI\u2019m responsible for this so I want to publish this book and tell the Chinese government: the five booksellers, they are innocent.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are not responsible for this. I\u2019m responsible for this. I want to \u2026 tell the Chinese government: let the five guys go home,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, Chinese police confirmed for the first time that three of the five booksellers were being investigated for \u201cillegal activities\u201d in China, in a letter sent to Hong Kong police.<\/p>\n
The three men \u2013 Lui Por, Cheung Chi-ping and Lam Wing-kee, who were linked to the Causeway Bay Books shop \u2013 had had \u201ccriminal compulsory measures\u201d imposed on them, Chinese police in the southern province of Guangdong said in the letter.<\/p>\n
Xi Nuo said he had completed his book on the president for Gui\u2019s company in 2014. However, he claimed Gui decided not to publish after receiving a visit from a Chinese government agent.<\/p>\n
Last year Gui appears to have changed his mind.<\/p>\n
Before he was detained in December, Lee Bo told the Guardian he suspected his friend\u2019s disappearance was connected to imminent plans to publish a mysterious and highly sensitive book.<\/p>\n
Those plans never materialised, with Gui vanishing from his holiday home in Thailand in mid-October, before the book could be released.<\/p>\n
However, a version of the salacious tome appeared online last month.<\/p>\n
Xi Nuo said he decided to publish the book online in order to challenge Beijing, adding: \u201cWhy doesn\u2019t the government come to New York and sue us?\u201d<\/p>\n
The apparent abductions of Lee and Gui, from Hong Kong and Thailand respectively, have infuriated Beijing\u2019s critics and the international community, who accuse the Chinese government of trampling on international law and Hong Kong\u2019s judicial autonomy in order to hunt down its foes.<\/p>\n
Last month Gui was paraded on television to make a televised \u201cconfession\u201d that his daughter suggested he had been forced to make.<\/p>\n
British and Swedish officials have been refused access to Lee and Gui, who are understood to be in the custody of Chinese security services.<\/p>\n
This week the US said it was \u201cdeeply concerned\u201d about the fate of the booksellers and urged China to allow the men to return home.<\/p>\n
The scandal has sent a chill through Hong Kong\u2019s supposedly free publishing world, which has traditionally been able to produce books outlawed in the authoritarian mainland thanks to the \u201cone country, two systems\u201d model introduced on its return to China in 1997.<\/p>\n
Bao Pu, one of the former British colony\u2019s most prominent publishers of political literature, told the New York Times he was considering quitting the industry in the wake of recent events.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think pretty much we\u2019re done,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Source: http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2016\/feb\/05\/author-book-missing-hong-kong-publishers-beijing-free-them<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Tom Phillips in Beijing, Friday 5 Februa … Continue reading