Foreign secretary seeking information on suspected abduction of Lee Bo, who holds a British passport and vanished last week

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

The foreign secretary, Philip Hammond, has said he is urgently seeking information from Beijing over the suspected abduction of a UK citizen who is among five Hong Kong booksellers to have disappeared in recent months.

Speaking on Tuesday at the start of a two-day visit to China, Hammond confirmed earlier reports that Lee Bo, 65, who vanished last Wednesday, is a British passport holder.

“These people have gone missing – Mr Lee Bo, who is a British passport holder, has gone missing – and we have urgently inquired both of [the] Hong Kong authorities and of the mainland Chinese authorities what, if anything, they know of his whereabouts,” he told a press conference in Beijing.

British citizen among missing Hong Kong booksellers Read more

Asked whether he was concerned about claims that Chinese security agents were behind Lee’s apparent abduction, Hammond replied: “I think, if I may, you are speculating a little bit about what has happened.”

China has so far refused to comment directly on the five disappearances. But the Chinese foreign minister, Wang Yi, speaking alongside Hammond, appeared to confirm his government’s involvement in Lee’s disappearance for the first time.

Asked about the missing bookseller’s situation, Wang said: “On the specific case you mentioned … based on the basic law of Hong Kong and China’s nationality law, the person in question is first and foremost a Chinese citizen.

“It is not necessary for anyone to make groundless speculations.”

The disappearances since last October of the five booksellers who specialised in salacious exposés of the Communist party elite has outraged Hong Kong’s vibrant pro-democracy community.

One of the missing, the publisher Gui Minhai, was apparently taken from his beachfront holiday home in Thailand on 17 October. Three others appear to have been detained in southern China. Lee went missing last Wednesday in Hong Kong and, inexplicably, appears to have entered mainland China without travel documents or being detected by Hong Kong immigration officials.

Lee’s disappearance has led to a wave of protests in the former British colony. Activists describe his apparent detention and removal to the mainland as a body blow to Hong Kong’s partial autonomy from China, under which it maintains political and judicial freedoms that are unthinkable on the authoritarian mainland.

Bao Pu, a respected Hong Kong publisher, told the Guardian that Lee’s suspected abduction showed that the “one country, two systems” formula under which Hong Kong has operated since its return to Chinese hands in 1997 had “completely collapsed”.

Hammond also expressed concerns about the implications of Lee’s case for Hong Kong’s autonomy. “Our view is that … in a question of any breach of Hong Kong laws, the question must be settled in Hong Kong by the Hong Kong judicial system,” he said. “That is an essential part of the ‘one country, two systems’ principle.”

He added: “We would hope that wherever Mr Lee is – if he is charged with any offences – those offences would be tried in Hong Kong.”

The motive for the suspected abductions remains a mystery, but one well-placed source in Hong Kong told the Guardian that they were part of a Communist party attempt to stamp out a “smear campaign” against the Chinese president, Xi Jinping.

Gui’s publishing house had been preparing to release a book entitled Xi and His Six Women, said the source, who has direct knowledge of the book’s contents. “The mainland authorities decided to shut the whole operation down,” the source said.

In a statement, the Foreign Office said it was “deeply concerned” about the disappearances and was seeking Chinese assistance in ascertaining Lee Bo’s “welfare and whereabouts”.