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Missing Hong Kong Bookseller's Wife Says He's in China to Help With 'Investigation'

Five men linked to a publisher that specializes in books critical of China's Communist Party leaders have vanished from Hong Kong in recent months.
Photographs of the missing bookstore shareholders Gui Minhai, left, and Lee Bo, are taped to barriers outside the China Liaison Office during a protest in Hong Kong on January 10, 2016. (Photo by Jerome Favre)

The wife of one of five missing Hong Kong booksellers said she met with her husband in China, according to a statement released by the Hong Kong police on Sunday amid growing diplomatic pressure on Chinese authorities to clarify the fate of the men.

Lee Bo, 65, an owner of a publisher and bookshop specializing in books critical of China's Communist Party leaders, vanished in late December amid widespread speculation that Chinese authorities may have abducted him in Hong Kong and spirited him across to China for an investigation.

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Lee, who has dual Hong Kong and British citizenship, surfaced on Saturday, meeting his wife at a guesthouse in mainland China, the Hong Kong police said in a statement issued after midnight on Sunday.

His wife, Sophie Choi, told police that her husband was healthy and in good spirits.

The statement cited Lee's wife as saying he was "assisting in an investigation in the capacity of a witness," though she didn't give specifics on the location nor the nature of the investigation, the statement added.

Related: Plot Thickens as Missing Hong Kong Bookseller Faxes Mysterious Message to Wife

The Hong Kong police said they would continue to probe the case, and would put in a fresh request with police in China's southern Guangdong province to arrange a meeting with Lee Bo.

Calls to the mobile phones of Lee and his wife went unanswered.

The disappearances have prompted fears that mainland Chinese authorities may be using shadowy tactics that erode the "one country, two systems" formula under which Hong Kong has been governed since its return to China from British rule in 1997.

One of the missing men, Gui Min-hai, a Swedish passport-holder, appeared on Chinese state television last weekend, tearfully confessing to a fatal hit-and-run drunk-driving incident more than a decade ago. Gui said he voluntarily turned himself in for the offense, a claim that was met with skepticism from his family.

So far, Chinese authorities have not responded to multiple requests for comment about the missing men, nor have they made any substantial statements explaining Beijing's role in the disappearances.

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Earlier this month, thousands took to the streets of Hong Kong demanding to know the whereabouts of the men who were all linked to a publisher, Mighty Current, that was reportedly planning a new book on the love life of Chinese leader Xi Jinping, focusing on one of his ex-girlfriends.

Related: The Missing Hong Kong Bookseller's Family Isn't Buying His Televised Confession

A senior foreign diplomatic source in Hong Kong with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters that at least six foreign governments had now officially pressed China for information regarding the disappearances, but so far there had been a "deafening silence."

The source who declined to be named given the sensitivity of the case, said the "suspicious circumstances suggested a rendition of one of the disappeared persons" by China.

Publishers and book vendors in the city have also been unnerved by the mysterious disappearances, and in some cases pulled books critical of Beijing's leaders from their shelves.

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