A group of Hong Kong booksellers specialising in books criticising China’s Communist elite have gone missing.

The four men work for Sage Communications, a publisher and bookshop famed for producing sensational and salacious tomes on the private lives of top Chinese leaders.

Recent titles include The Collapse of Xi Jinping in 2017, Hu Jintao’s Plot Against Xi Jinping, and a book allegedly penned by the former mistress of China’s disgraced security chief Zhou Yongkang, who was sentenced to life in prison in June.

Gui Minhai, the Swedish owner of Sage Communications, was last seen after he travelled to his holiday home in Thailand, while Lu Bo, the company’s general manager, and Zhang Zhiping, another employee, have not been heard from since they went to visit family members in mainland China.

Lin Rongji, the manager of Sage Bookshop, has also disappeared, although his whereabouts are not clear, according to a report from Radio Free Asia, the US-funded news group.



Maya Wang, a researcher for Human Rights Watch in Hong Kong, said: “They all live in Hong Kong and we are very concerned about this report.



“If this is confirmed, it would be another case involving Chinese dissidents and the Thai authorities. Currently, a member of the banned Chinese Democratic party, Dong Guangping, has been arrested while he was applying for political asylum [and] accused of having an expired passport.

“And we have other reports concerning Chinese dissidents being brought to China from [Myanmar] after they pleaded guilty to immigration charges, and of Turkic refugees in Thailand sent to China.”



Last month, Bao Zhuoxuan, the son of the imprisoned Chinese human rights lawyer Wang Yu, was detained near Myanmar’s border with China after apparently trying to flee to the US.



“This incident is very concerning as it comes after the sentencing to 10 years of Hong Kong publisher Yiu Manting last year, and the trial last week of Hong Kong journalists Wang Jianmin and Guo Zhongxiao,” Wang said, referring to the case of two Hong Kong residents charged with running an illegal business in China after mailing copies of a political magazine to addresses on the mainland.



One member of the publishing industry, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisals, said: “The people behind Sage Communications have long been hated by the princelings, absolutely hated, because their books are so sensationalistic.



“They have been going to former mistresses asking them to write autobiographies, and in many cases they have also published made-up life stories of prominent politicians. But what is happening to them is a huge problem: they have been operating for years with no problems, but now the bookstore is getting into trouble and the people are getting into trouble.”

The source said publishers in the former British colony now felt under siege. “We used to be fine in Hong Kong. Now we get menacing calls from people claiming to be mainland authorities, saying we have to stop publication. Self-censorship is becoming rampant,” they added.