Sweden replaces China envoy over deal on detained bookseller

Sweden has recalled its ambassador to China over her involvement in a bizarre meeting involving the daughter of a detained Swedish-Chinese bookseller.

The Hong Kong-based, Swedish publisher of books critical of China’s communist leaders was abducted in Thailand in 2015 and later appeared in custody in mainland China.

The ambassador, Anna Lindstedt, left Beijing on Wednesday, a spokesperson for the Swedish foreign ministry said.

Gui was one of five Hong Kong-based booksellers detained.

Angela Gui, who is studying for a PhD at Cambridge University and has campaigned for her father's release, said she was contacted by Lindstedt last month with an invitation to a meeting with a group of Chinese businessmen who said they had connections to the Chinese Communist Party.

It is not clear exactly when the meeting took place.

Gui said in her account that the men pressured her to accept a deal: stop speaking publicly about her father's case and he would serve a few years in prison and then go free.

Sweden’s Foreign Ministry said that was not an official meeting, and Lindstedt had now returned to Sweden with an interim envoy sent to Beijing in her place.

“The Foreign Ministry in Stockholm did not know about these events until the end of January after the meeting had taken place,” a spokeswoman said.

“We have started an internal investigation.”

According to Gui's account, Lindstedt was supportive of the arrangement, telling her that China was "adopting a new diplomatic line" and that, if her publicity continued, China might "punish Sweden".

Gui made her excuses and left to return to the UK. When she contacted the Swedish foreign ministry she discovered it knew nothing of the arrangement, or even that Lindstedt was in the country.

Gui’s original abduction - along with four others in the Hong Kong book trade - fed worries about interference from Beijing despite guarantees of wide-ranging freedoms for the former British colony which returned to Chinese rule in 1997.

The four others have since returned to Hong Kong. The United States and the European Union have urged Gui’s release.