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Hong Kong bookseller disappearances
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Protesters try to stick photos of missing booksellers, one of which shows Gui Minhai (left), during a demonstration outside the mainland Liaison Office in Hong Kong, on January 3, 2016. Gui, a Swedish citizen, was one of five employees of a Hong Kong bookshop specialising in salacious tales about high-level Chinese politics who were believed to have been spirited to the mainland in late 2015. Photo: AP
OpinionLetters

Letters | What Chinese leaders can learn from the Swedes about playing it cool in politics

  • The greater the official fuss over gossipy books, the more people are likely to believe that there is truth to the fiction
  • Cut the fuss, let Gui Minhai go, and no one will believe his books
Hong Kong bookseller disappearances
Letters
Letters
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I love Hong Kong, the atmosphere, the people. Hong Kong is the perfect mix between old and new. When visiting, it feels like travelling 100 years back in time; but in other ways Hong Kong is more developed and technologically advanced than back home in Sweden. It has been three years since I was in Hong Kong, but I still feel the pull of the city.

Since I love Hong Kong so much, I have also noticed the cultural differences that influence our perception of politics, which see political statements and political acts interpreted differently. As I write, demonstrations against the extradition bill show no signs of ending. From a Swedish perspective, the clearest example of the importance of an extradition bill is the case of Gui Minhai. Since Chinese-born Gui is a Swedish citizen, I thought I would tell you a bit about how our cultural differences make us interpret the case differently.
In 2012, a Swedish movie called Call Girl was made. The movie implied that Olof Palme – the best prime minister we ever had – had been involved with child prostitutes. There was a public outcry about whether the allegation was true or if the filmmakers had slandered a murdered man who could not defend himself. However, the majority of Swedes – including myself – saw Call Girl in sort of the same light as we see the Da Vinci Code. As fiction.

Of course, the majority of the Swedish population would be furious if Palme had been involved with prostitutes, but most of us thought the movie was nonsense. However, if the Swedish government had stopped the movie from being released, then Swedish people like me would most certainly think that Palme had been involved. With the “theory” out there in the open, we could reject it as nonsense.

Transparency is the best way forward

Hence, when China wants to send out the message that nobody talks bad about the Chinese government, we do not hear that. Instead, we hear that those stories about love, murder and revenge among Chinese leaders that are said to be fiction, are not fiction, they must be true. Otherwise, the Chinese government would not send agents to Thailand to kidnap a Swedish national, just to try to stop these books from being published.
The more effort China puts into trying to stop such books from being published, the more we will believe that what is written in those books are fact, not fiction.

China is playing the role of the big bad wolf but, from my perspective, it might be a better idea to play the victim. If Gui was released, the people would change their perception regarding the books; they would see the salacious books about Chinese leaders as nonsense. We might even consider the books to be slander. Public opinion would turn to China’s advantage.

Clara Ekström, Stockholm

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