Hong Kong publisher 'lured' to China and detained

AFP, Hong Kong

China's president Xi Jinping with his wife (picture: AFP Photo/Laudes Martial Mbon)

A Hong Kong publisher, who was due to release a dissident's book about Chinese President Xi Jinping, has been detained in China for almost three months, a report said Tuesday.

Yao Wentian, the 73-year-old chief editor of Morning Bell Press, was surrounded by a dozen plain-clothes security agents and detained late October after he was lured to the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, the South China Morning Post said.

Citing sources close to Yao's wife, the report said Yao was being held in a detention centre and police have not disclosed the charges against him, which may include smuggling and evasion of import tariffs.

Yao was working with US-based author and dissident Yu Jie to publish his book Chinese Godfather Xi Jinping.

I think his work on my Xi Jinping book is the main reason why he's been detained, Yu told the Post, adding that Yao disappeared just as the book was about to be published.

Morning Bell Press was not available for comment when contacted on Tuesday.

Yu had said on Facebook that the first draft of his book on Xi was complete and was expected to be released in April.

Yu had previously authored China's Best Actor: Wen Jiabao, a scathing critique on the nation's former premier.

In 2012, Yao complained to Google, saying his Gmail account had been hacked while he prepared to release Yu's Hu Jintao: Harmony King, a book on China's former president.

Censored Chinese books have become a big seller in the former British colony of Hong Kong, a semi-autonomous region of China.

China came 173rd in a press freedom ranking of 179 countries issued by the advocacy group Reporters Without Borders last year, climbing one place on the previous year. AFP