15 Aug 2011 01:08:26
Ma Jian, author of Red Dust and Beijing Coma, was prevented from crossing the border from Hong Kong on Saturday. He had previously returned hundreds of times since leaving China in 1986. Officials have given him no reason for the ban or any indication of how long it will last.
"The fact that I have been denied entry is an indication of how repressive the regime has become," said Ma. "It is vitally important for me, both personally and for my writing, to be able to return to China freely, so being barred entry has caused me deep concern and distress.
"I suspected that my trip to Beijing this summer might be problematic because of the increasingly harsh political climate in China. And sure enough, for the first time in my life, I have been denied entry."
The 58-year-old said this clampdown felt different to others he had witnessed over the last three decades, and suggested that a lack of international reaction was partially responsible.
Citing the imprisonment of Nobel peace prize winner Liu Xiaobo and the two-month detention of Ai Weiwei, he warned: "There are echoes of the Cultural Revolution, when no sounds could be heard other than the deafening voice of the Communist party. This current clampdown began with the Beijing Olympics. The government discovered that they could suppress all forms of dissent, and still receive the approbation of the international community."
Ma is a permanent resident of Hong Kong, having moved there shortly before his first book was denounced by the Chinese authorities in 1987. He left for the UK when Hong Kong was handed back to China in 1997 and lives in London with his partner and translator Flora Drew and their children.
Although his works are banned on the mainland he has been able to return regularly, but said his movements are closely monitored.
Ma added: "When I travelled through the Chinese countryside while researching the book I've just finished, almost every friend I stayed with along my route was later questioned by the police."
He was also summoned to see state security officers while visiting Beijing in 2008. They said they were watching him closely but that as long as he stayed away from politically sensitive people such as Liu Xiaobo, and did not contact the media while on the mainland, he could return whenever he wished.
Ma said he had been in Hong Kong for a book fair last week and wanted to buy books in Shenzhen before flying back to London. He now fears he will be unable to make a long planned trip to Beijing next week with his family. His 88-year-old mother is in frail health and has yet to meet his youngest children.
