State department echoes sentiment expressed by chief executive of the special administrative region, who noted threat to one-country, two-systems arrangement

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

The US said on Friday it was disturbed by reports that five Hong Kong booksellers critical of China’s leaders had disappeared.

Britain says suspected abduction of bookseller would be 'egregious breach' by China Read more

Lee Bo, 65, a shareholder of Causeway Bay Books and a British passport holder, went missing from Hong Kong last week, though his wife has said he voluntarily travelled to China and has withdrawn a missing person report.

Four other associates of the publisher that specialises in selling controversial political books on China’s Communist Party leaders have been unaccounted for since late 2015.

“We are disturbed by reports of the disappearances,” John Kirby, a state department spokesman, told a regular news briefing. “We share the concern of the people of Hong Kong regarding these disappearances.”

He said the US was closely following the issue and noted a statement on 4 January by Leung Chun-ying, Hong Kong’s chief executive, expressing concern about the potential implications of this case. “We share those concerns,” he said.

The disappearances, and China’s silence, have stoked concerns that they were abducted by mainland agents in shadowy tactics that erode the “one-country, two-systems” formula under which Hong Kong has been governed since its 1997 return to China.

One of Hong Kong’s leading international bookshop chains has since removed politically sensitive books from its shelves.

Hong Kong bookshops pull politically sensitive titles after publishers vanish Read more

On Wednesday, Philip Hammond, the UK foreign secretary, said any abduction of people from Hong Kong to face charges elsewhere would be an “egregious breach” of Beijing’s promises on how it would rule the former British colony.

He said that, after a two-day visit to Beijing, there had been “no progress” on determining the booksellers’ whereabouts, after raising the case with Chinese and Hong Kong officials.

Hua Chunying, a Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman, said on Wednesday that China opposed “any foreign country interfering with China’s domestic politics, or interfering with Hong Kong affairs”.