Taiwan hails late Hong Kong bookseller for ‘resistance’ against China

TAIPEI – A Hong Kong bookseller who fled to Taiwan in 2019 after being detained by China was hailed for his “resistance and defiance” at a memorial service on July 31.Lam Wing-kee, 70, died in Taipei on July 2 after a battle with cancer.Lam’s life was “a story of struggle, resistance and defiance against the Chinese Communist Party”, Premier Cho Jung-tai told dozens of people gathered at a Presbyterian church in Taipei.“While a dictatorship can close the doors of (Lam’s) bookshop, it can never lock away his soul that yearns for freedom,” Cho said after presenting a posthumous certificate to the bookseller.The certificate was accepted by Lam’s son, who had travelled to Taiwan from Britain for the event but declined to speak to reporters.Several senior Taiwanese officials took part in the ceremony, which was followed by a separate memorial service attended by more than 100 people, organisers said.“Although he was hunched, his defence of freedom stood tall,” said Tseng Chien-yuan, executive director of the Taipei-based civil society group, Citizen Congress Watch.At the end of 2015, Lam and four other publishers of gossip-filled tomes on China’s leaders vanished, later resurfacing in mainland custody and making televised confessions.Their disappearance caused widespread alarm in Hong Kong.Lam was allowed back into Hong Kong in June 2016 on condition that he pick up a hard drive listing the bookstore’s customers and return to the mainland.But he skipped bail and went public with explosive testimony detailing how he was blindfolded by mainland police after crossing the border at Shenzhen and had spent months being interrogated.In April 2019, Lam fled to Taiwan after Hong Kong announced plans to allow extraditions to China, a move which sparked months of huge and sometimes violent pro-democracy protests in the financial hub later that year.Lam reopened his store Causeway Bay Books in Taipei in 2020 and frequently urged people to safeguard the island’s democratic system.In 2025, Lam told the media that his lung adenocarcinoma had recurred and had progressed to stage four.He closed his bookshop recently, citing health reasons.At the memorial on July 31, a woman surnamed Lee told AFP she met Lam through volunteer work for a Taiwanese grassroots movement.“What left the deepest impression on me was (Lam) saying, ‘You have freedom and democracy in Taiwan, and you must cherish them. Our freedom and democracy in Hong Kong are already gone,’” Lee said. AFP