Over half of the bookshops in Hong Kong are owned by the headquarters of the Chinese government, a local media investigation reveals.
Public broadcaster RTHK found the Beijing Liaison Office is the majority stakeholder of media conglomerate Sino United Publishing (SUP) through a series of shell companies in Hong Kong and Guangzhou.
SUP owns 28 publishing houses based in Hong Kong as well as Macau, China, Singapore, Canada, the United States and Britain, according to the company website.
It also operates 19 bookstores across Hong Kong including at the airport.
Sino chairman Lee Cho-jat told RTHK the company was "a national asset" but said it did not have a political agenda.
Publishing and media freedom have become increasingly political topics in Hong Kong, which is a special administrative region of China.
In 2015, five booksellers who specialised in titles banned in China were abducted by Chinese security agents in Hong Kong, detained and forced to give confessions on Chinese state television.
One bookseller, Gui Minhai, remains in Chinese custody after his re-arrest in China earlier this year.
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