A piece from Initium Media unpacks the limits of solidarity between Hong Kong and Taiwan
“I am a bookstore worker.”
These six Chinese characters, printed on a black t-shirt, became the unlikely centre of a bitter debate between Hong Kong and Taiwan this summer. When an employee of Hong Kong independent bookstore “Have a Nice Stay” was arrested in July, photographs showed her walking away with plain-clothed officers, head held high, wearing the shirt. Within days, the image had travelled from Hong Kong streets to Taiwanese bookstores, social media, a concert stage and even the president’s social-media feed. Some Taiwanese proposed printing their own shirts; others rushed to buy Hong Kong books. Yet for some Hongkongers, the response felt less like solidarity than seeing their suffering turned into someone else’s symbol.
The episode exposes grievances accumulated since the massive 2019 pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. From Taiwan’s Sunflower Movement and Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement to the 2019 protests, activists in both places often saw their political futures as intertwined. “Today Hong Kong, tomorrow Taiwan” captured that intimacy in 2019. But in 2026, the same instinct to stand together can provoke suspicion, resentment and hurt.
A long-form piece from Chinese-language outlet Initium Media asks what happened to a relationship once defined by mutual identification.
The immediate trigger was a police operation on 15 July, when Hong Kong national security police and customs officers searched “Have a Nice Stay” and another longstanding bookstore on the same street, arresting five people on suspicion of sedition – a common tactic of law enforcement in Hong Kong. Authorities said customs had intercepted books mailed into Hong Kong with “seditious intent”. It was the fourth Hong Kong bookstore searched by police this year.
Taiwanese support came quickly. Politicians, cultural figures and media commentators shared the story; books associated with the case shot up bestseller lists. But controversy erupted when a Taiwanese independent bookstore floated the idea of reproducing the “I am a bookstore worker” t-shirt. Hong Kong commenters accused it of “Human Blood Bun” (人血饅頭), a Chinese expression that roughly translates to profiting from or exploiting another person’s suffering. The Taiwanese bookstore abandoned the idea after discussions with its Hong Kong counterparts.
But the argument intensified when Taiwanese punk band Fire EX. projected the words “I am a bookstore worker” during a Taipei concert. The gesture was intended as support for Hong Kong’s freedom: the band has a long history of backing its democracy movement. But a former employee of “Have a Nice Stay” said it made her uncomfortable because Hong Kong’s distant suffering seemed to have become “a backdrop” against which Taiwan could celebrate its own freedom.
This distinction— between being seen and being consumed — runs through the article.
For some Hongkongers, the problem is one of agency. A person with their own history, memories and political subjectivity can quickly become a symbol through which outsiders affirm their own commitment to democracy. Social media accelerates the process: complicated circumstances are flattened into an image, slogan or viral moment. More troublingly, visibility itself now carries different consequences. While international attention could be an important source of protection during earlier Hong Kong protests; exposure in 2026 may instead place the person being “supported” at greater risk.
Some Hongkongers resent Taiwan politicians for invoking Hong Kong as a warning about authoritarianism while Taiwan has simultaneously tightened immigration pathways for Hongkongers. Taiwanese, meanwhile, live with intensifying fears about Chinese influence and information warfare. Online criticism can therefore be interpreted not as genuine disagreement but as an attempt to divide Hong Kong and Taiwanese supporters.
Yet the article is careful not to present Hong Kong opinion as unanimous. Other Hong Kong booksellers expressed nothing but gratitude for Taiwan’s attention, while some defended Fire EX.’s gesture as consistent with the band’s longstanding support for democracy.
Nor are Taiwanese supporters portrayed as simply insensitive. One man created printable “I am a bookstore worker” signs with a QR code explaining the arrests. After reading Hong Kong criticism, he began questioning his own assumptions. Should he continue? Eventually, he produced another version: “I am a bookstore customer.” It positioned him not as the person experiencing repression, but as someone capable of supporting booksellers and freedom of publication from his own position.
Taiwanese bookseller Hsu Shu-lei proposes a quieter form of solidarity. Instead of allowing attention to end with outrage, bookstores can provide spaces where readers encounter Hong Kong in all its complexity – through books, discussions and sustained professional relationships. He describes public engagement as moving through three stages: seeing, understanding, and acting. Solidarity need not mean adopting somebody else’s identity; it might begin with reading their story carefully enough to understand it.
Perhaps the article’s sharpest metaphor comes from Ah Cheuk, a pseudonymous Hong Kong independent bookseller. After years of accumulating political and personal frustrations, she says Hong Kong and Taiwan have begun “using defence against defence, wounds against wounds” – each knows precisely where the other hurts and tears at that wound.
The question, then, is bigger than a t-shirt. Seven years ago, “Today Hong Kong, tomorrow Taiwan” could express a shared political destiny. Today, one sentence –“I am a bookstore worker” – can simultaneously make some Hongkongers feel remembered and others feel that their trauma has been turned into scenery. The distance between solidarity and consumption lies not only in intention, the article suggests, but in whether people remain willing to understand how profoundly each other’s circumstances have changed.
The original article ‘「我是書店店員」台港輿論風波：反修例七年後，台灣和香港如何理解彼此？’ was first published in Chinese by 馬碧玉 Mavis Ma, 姚拏云 Yao Nayun, 王穎芝Wang Ying Chih for Initium Media on 23 July 2026.
Initium Media is a Chinese-language digital media outlet based in Singapore.
Summary by Kin Long Tong
