Hong Kong Book Fair's Red Lines

Customers eager to snap up books at the Book Fair

It was announced that the annual Hong Kong Book Fair will be held for a week starting on July 19 at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre in Wan Chai, and that exhibitors could show books as long as they weren't banned.

The Hong Kong Trade and Development Council would not pre-screen books, "as long as the titles didn't breach the law, including the national security law.

Pick your books carefully, no breaking the law

Sophia Chong, deputy executive director at HKTDC said there was no list of "banned titles", and that all exhibitors were familiar with the "house rules".

So she is basically saying there are no banned books, but if you sell anything the government deems illegal then you'll be arrested. The authorities don't have a list of the books, but surely you know what they are...

It's like the chicken and the egg -- which came first?

But clues can be found of what may probably not be displayed. In May some 200 books were taken off the shelves of Hong Kong libraries, many of them written by pro-democracy activists.

Most people would rather err on the side of caution than walk a fine line.

This is what Hong Kong has become, a place full of invisible red lines that are a minefield to navigate. 

How would the government react to these titles?

Books are knowledge, and knowledge is truth, something the government is terrified of Hongkongers of having.