Beijing seeks loyalty from ethnic Chinese settled abroad

AFTER the disappearance last December of Hong Kong bookseller Lee Bo, Britain's foreign secretary Philip Hammond asked Beijing for information on his whereabouts, pointing out that the 65-year-old was a British national. China's foreign minister, Wang Yi, responded that Mr Lee was "first and foremost a Chinese".

Subsequently, Mr Lee appeared on television and said that he wanted to give up his British citizenship.

Similarly, Gui Minhai, Mr Lee's colleague in the bookselling business, a Swedish national who mysteriously disappeared while in Thailand, popped up on Chinese television and asked the Swedish government not to help him - certainly an odd thing to say for someone who was clearly in deep trouble with the Chinese government.