Taipei says that Hong Kong’s customs officers are increasing their scrutiny of “almost every book shipment” to Hong Kong originating in Taiwan. This has been going on for a while.
The fear is that products of the freer atmosphere of Taiwan will end up contaminating the thinking of not yet perfectly regimented Hongkongers before Hong Kong authorities have a chance to yank the latest heretical imports from Hong Kong bookstore shelves (South China Morning Post, July 23, 2026).
Independent bookstores and logistics companies also confirmed on Wednesday that customs had stepped up checks on book shipments from Taiwan in recent months….
The MAC [the Republic of China’s Mainland Affairs Council] told the SCMP the increase in inspections followed amendments in March to the implementation rules of Hong Kong’s national security law, which empower authorities to seize items deemed seditious.
“Since March and April this year, almost all orders of books from Taiwan have been checked by Hong Kong customs, compared with once every several months previously. The checks are more frequent,” an MAC spokesman said….
The MAC’s remarks followed a notice issued by Jaguar Logistics, a Hong Kong-based firm with branches in mainland China and Taiwan, urging local bookstores to ensure their shipments did not breach national security legislation….
The notice came at a time of rising pressure on independent bookstores in Hong Kong.
At least some Taiwanese book distributors are working to abet Hong Kong’s censorship regime. A staffer in the Taiwan branch of Jaguar Logistics says that the branch is now looking more closely at books to be shipped to the former British colony.
Do-it-yourself transnational repression
“Whether a book violates the national security law is determined by the Hong Kong government, but some books that obviously [do so], for example, Let Only Red Flowers Bloom, we will not ship,” the staffer says.
It was this particular book, praised for “chronicling the state oppression of those who fail to conform to Xi Jinping’s definition of who is ‘Chinese,’ ” which reportedly led to the recent arrests at the Hong Kong bookstores Have a Nice Stay and Greenfield Book Store.
This same Taiwan branch of Jaguar Logistics has also stopped shipping any volumes to these two Hong Kong bookstores and others that have been raided. “Have a Nice Stay was our customer, but we told them we will not be able to serve them any more, because the incident had caused a scene.”
Because “the incident had caused a scene”?
The Chinese-language news site Mingpao confirms that the Taiwan branch of Jaguar Logistics not only won’t ship books to Hong Kong that might violate Hong Kong’s National Security Law but also won’t ship at all to targeted bookstores.
