Lam Wing-kee, a former Hong Kong bookseller seized by Chinese authorities in late 2015 and later a symbol of resistance to tighter controls on speech, died in Taiwan at 70 after a cancer relapse, according to a report from Taiwan’s Central News Agency.
Taipei, Taiwan — Lam Wing-kee knew what it meant to lose time and control. In his account of what happened after he crossed from Hong Kong into mainland China in October 2015. he described being blindfolded for a 13-hour train ride and held in a room under 24-hour surveillance for five months. Years later. he built a new life on the Taiwanese island. reopening a bookstore under the same name after fearing further legal troubles.
Now he has died in Taiwan. Taiwan’s official Central News Agency reported. citing an unnamed source. that Lam. 70. died Thursday evening after a cancer relapse last year. The report said he was admitted to MacKay Memorial Hospital in Taipei on Tuesday. fell into a coma on Wednesday. and died Thursday.
Lam, who previously worked at Causeway Bay Books in Hong Kong, moved to Taipei in 2019 and reopened the bookstore in 2020. Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te offered condolences in a Facebook post.
“The passing of Mr Lam Wing-kee is deeply saddening, but the courage he left behind would not fade,” Lai wrote. “Taiwan will remember that a Hong Kong bookstore worker once told us in the most ordinary yet most steadfast way how precious freedom is and reminded us that democracy requires the efforts of generation after generation to defend it.”.
Lam became widely known after Chinese authorities seized him in late 2015, part of a broader disappearance that has echoed across the region and reshaped how people talk about free speech in Hong Kong.
He was one of five people affiliated with Causeway Books who disappeared in late 2015. The store sold books and magazines that purported to reveal secrets about the inside lives of Chinese leaders and scandals surrounding them. One of the other five. publisher Gui Minhai. went missing from his holiday home in Thailand and was later sentenced to 10 years in prison in China on a charge of illegally providing intelligence overseas.
Lam’s own testimony in 2016 contradicted official Chinese accounts about what happened to the five booksellers. He said that Chinese authorities seized him in October 2015 after he crossed the border from Hong Kong to Shenzhen. He described being blindfolded for the 13-hour train ride to Ningbo and kept under 24-hour surveillance in a room for five months. with rotating two-person teams. He also said he was later forced to appear on Chinese television to confess to crimes.
In June, Lam told Taiwan’s Central News Agency that he had temporarily closed the bookstore in Taipei because of his health and couldn’t say when it might reopen.
Chinese and Hong Kong authorities have tightened controls over the territory following massive anti-government protests in 2019. In June. Hong Kong police arrested two people on suspicion of selling seditious publications and receiving funds from foreign political organizations. acting under a recent national security law.
The sequence of events has left a clear imprint on public life: books and reporting about power have repeatedly met with detention and disappearance. while efforts to move those stories into wider reach have carried personal risks. For Lam. those risks followed him from Hong Kong to mainland custody and ultimately to Taiwan. where he spent years trying to continue selling the kind of publications he once had access to in Causeway Bay—until illness narrowed the future he could plan for.
Lam Wing-kee Hong Kong bookseller Causeway Bay Books Taiwan Lai Ching-te Central News Agency MacKay Memorial Hospital cancer relapse national security law booksellers disappearance
RIP. 13 hours blindfolded is insane.
I don’t really get all the politics part but cancer relapse?? Like why does China being involved always get brought up. Still sad for him though.
Wait so he “crossed into mainland China” and then got kidnapped, but people are acting like it was totally unexpected. Like if you go into the lion’s den you kinda already know… but the blindfold train thing sounds real messed up. Either way condolences.
I saw another post about this and it said he died because of what they did to him, not just cancer relapse. But the article’s like coma then hospital, so idk what’s true. Also the bookstore reopening in 2020—good for him, but I’m confused why someone would go back to the same name if they were already scared. Freedom speech stuff aside, this just feels like one of those stories where details get mixed up fast.