Hong Kong –

As public libraries in Hong Kong remove books and documentaries about the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, a race to preserve them somewhere else continues.

Leung Kai Chi, a Hong Kong-born professor who is now a visiting scholar at National Taiwan University, said he is still collecting books related to Hong Kong society and sending them to public university libraries in Taiwan, according to a post he made on Facebook following the news of the removal of sensitive materials in public libraries.

“If someone is willing to donate books that libraries in Taiwan do not have in stock, I will be happy to act as an intermediary to coordinate the process,” Leung said, adding that several books about the aftermath of the Umbrella Movement — a widespread protest in Hong Kong in 2014 demanding universal suffrage — have been relocated to a library at National Taiwan University.

In the lead-up to the 34th anniversary of the crackdown, public libraries in Hong Kong were found to have scrapped several notable books and materials related to the incident, including a Chinese book titled “People Won’t Forget,” which was written by 64 Hong Kong journalists. A book about how the crackdown changed Chinese society, called “People’s Republic of Amnesia,” was also no longer available.

Keywords searches such as “Tiananmen,” “June 4, 1989,” “revolution” and “protest” yielded no results about the crackdown on the library system’s online catalog.

A Hong Kong government auditors’ report in late April instructed public libraries operators to “step up efforts” to ensure their collections do not carry materials that jeopardize national security.

A preliminary review of stocks has been completed, with this focusing on examining authors and publishers suspected of publishing books on “Hong Kong independence,” according to the report. The review is ongoing and does not have a clear end date.

On Tuesday, the city’s leader, John Lee Ka-chiu, defended the removal, saying that libraries must comply with the law and serve the interest of Hong Kong society.

“Public libraries need to ensure that there is no breach of any laws in Hong Kong, including, of course, copyrights, etc; and also, if they spread any kinds of messages that are not in the interests of Hong Kong,” Lee said, without elaborating further.

Critics worry that such moves will further damage the city’s reputation for openness, but Lee insisted that these books are still available for citizens to buy at private bookshops.

Hong Kong was once a haven of information that the Chinese government would like to erase from history books, including its military crackdown on the pro-democracy protest in 1989.

Public commemorations and memorials of the incident were permitted in Hong Kong for three decades. However, the annual June 4 candlelight vigil event has been barred by local authorities since 2020, citing the pandemic. Several commemorative monuments and statues have been dismantled at three universities.

Local media also reported that more than 40% of books and video materials with "political themes" have been erased from public libraries since 2020, the year in which Beijing imposed its sweeping national security law in the special administrative region.

The national security law, which criminalizes acts such as secession, subversion and collusion with foreign forces and allows a maximum sentence of life in prison, has received widespread criticism for being used as a tool by the mainland to suppress those who question Beijing’s authority.