Another, Lam Wing-kee, reopened Causeway Bay Books in Taipei after he skipped bail and fled Hong Kong. One, Gui Minhai, remains in a Chinese jail serving a 10-year sentence on espionage charges. Parallels have been drawn with the five Hong Kong booksellers who were “disappeared” from various global locations in 2015. Li Yanhe was detained by Chinese authorities last month. The Taiwan-based east Asia director for Reporters Without Borders, Cédric Alviani, joined global calls for his release, saying Li was “one of the last Chinese publishers to still dare release investigative books critical to the regime”.

For Li, many assumed it relates to Gusa’s publishing of titles critical of the Chinese Communist party or discussing topics such as the Tiananmen Square massacre, human rights abuses of Uyghurs in Xinjiang, and party corruption. Often, there is little to no detail of what those accused of endangering national security are supposed to have done. It also comes at a time of deepening authoritarianism in China, and escalating hostilities between Beijing and Taiwan. The case has sent chills through the island’s community of booksellers and writers, echoing previous cases of Chinese authorities targeting writers and disseminators of critical or politically sensitive literature – Li was not even the only case this week.

“Fucha is good and kind and wants to publish good books, but it’s hard in China because of censorship,” he says. Then on Thursday, Beijing confirmed that Li was detained, under investigation for “conducting activities endangering national security”. For days, Taiwan’s government would say only that he was safe and that his family had asked for privacy.

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