PROFILE: Andrew Kan, the police chief who defends having no list and leaves the risk with the bookseller

There is no list

The shelf

There is no list.

In Hong Kong, no public document says which books may be sold and which ones lead to the police station. No catalogue. No register. No line drawn.

There is a shelf. Book spines in a row. And a bookseller who runs a finger along them at night, wondering which one could cost him his freedom.

September 25, in Hong Kong Free Press

On September 25, at 1:56 p.m. Hong Kong time, Hong Kong Free Press published the words of a man who had just stepped down as head of the national security police.

His name is Andrew Kan. Kan Kai-yan, in full.

What he says boils down to this. Asking for a list of banned books, saying the red lines are blurry: that is already a form of resistance.

For him, silence is not an oversight. It is a method. He defends it.

This piece follows his dated acts, from 1991 to his last interview. Not his thoughts. His acts.

No list. Just a bookseller facing his shelf.

The farewell interview

A few chosen outlets

Kan spoke to a few selected media outlets. It was just before he left his post as deputy commissioner of police in charge of national security, HKFP reports.

In it, he defends his department’s raids on bookstores this year. He defends the arrests of their staff. It was not an abuse of power, he says.

National security legislation, in his view, is clear about what is illegal.

Then comes the sentence that sums it all up.

“Soft resistance”

Saying there is no list of banned books, or that the red lines are unclear, is, in his words, “a form of soft resistance.”

Asking the question is already resisting, he says.

The word carries weight. In Hong Kong, the authorities present soft resistance as a threat to national security.

Whoever asks where the line runs ends up on the wrong side of it. By the force of a single word.

Asking for the rule already makes you a suspect.

Thirty-five years in uniform

1991, inspector

This profile doesn’t begin in 2020. It begins in 1991.

That year, according to his official biography published by the police, Kan joined the Hong Kong Police Force as an inspector. Field work. Human resources. Security.

He served as deputy commander of Western District. Then commander of Airport District. Then commander of Wan Chai District. Then deputy regional commander of Hong Kong Island.

Service quality

In September 2019, he became assistant commissioner. He took charge of the unit responsible for service quality.

A long career. No public shine. District postings, night shifts, complaints to handle.

The Kan of that era ran police stations. He did not yet decide whether a book was a threat.

Thirty years of routine before the law that changed everything.

August 2020, the turn

Two months after the law

In June 2020, Beijing inserted the national security law directly into Hong Kong’s mini-constitution, HKFP recalls.

In August 2020, Kan was appointed assistant commissioner of police for national security. That was the turn. His official biography dates it.

In December 2021, he became senior assistant commissioner and director of national security.

September 2019: service quality. August 2020: national security.

May 2023, the oath

On May 2, 2023, Chief Executive John Lee appointed him deputy commissioner of police in charge of national security. He took over the department. He was sworn in that same day, according to the government’s release.

That day, Kan succeeded Edwina Lau, who was retiring. She had led the department since its creation, in July 2020.

John Lee praised his 32 years of police service. His outstanding performance. His professionalism. His exemplary commitment.

On June 4, 2025, an HKFP photographer caught him in Causeway Bay. A June 4. In Hong Kong, the date needs no explanation.

Less than four years separate the service quality unit from the top of national security.

A district officer becomes the guardian of a law from Beijing.

July 15, in Mong Kok

A parcel from overseas

Here is a dated act by his department. The government described it itself.

On July 15, at 11:29 p.m., a press release went out. Customs had flagged a batch of books “with seditious intention,” intercepted in a shipment from overseas.

The same day, officers searched two shops in Mong Kok. They arrested 2 men and 3 women, aged 30 to 59.

Seven years

All five were suspected of an act with seditious intention, under Section 24 of the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance.

Police suspected them of displaying items and selling publications that incited hatred against the government, the judiciary and law enforcement.

The maximum penalty on first conviction: 7 years in prison.

Police reminded the public that the offence is serious. They urged people not to defy the law.

The release gives the ages of those arrested. It gives no titles.

The day before, according to HKFP, one of the targeted bookstores, Have a Nice Stay, had announced its imminent closure. Its reasons: financial difficulties, “unclear red lines.”

Books seized, and not one title made public.

The police read the books

Reading after the fact

In his farewell interview, Kan explains the method.

His unit, he says, went further than the booksellers: “we actually read the books.” Before acting, the police consult the Department of Justice on whether the content could breach national security legislation.

And the bookseller? Before selling a book, he should read it, or seek legal advice. Otherwise, not sell it.

The bookseller decides alone

Look again at the order of things.

The police read afterwards. The department reads afterwards. The bookseller reads beforehand. Alone. No list. No written rule. With prison at the end of a mistake.

The criminal risk doesn’t disappear. It changes shoulders.

Who, behind a counter, can pay for legal advice on every book he orders?

The risk leaves the office that could publish a list. It lands on the counter of the one who sells.

The state keeps the pencil. The bookseller carries the risk.

A police officer’s logic

A list can be dodged

Kan deserves his best argument. He has one.

If a list were published today, he says, and a new illegal title came out tomorrow, people would ask why arrests were made when it wasn’t on the list.

That is a police officer’s reasoning. A closed list invites workarounds. A new title, a new cover, and the list is already out of date.

The argument has its logic. It has to be admitted. A written rule also hands a map to whoever wants to skirt it.

A career officer

We also need to say who he is. Not an ideologue parachuted in. A field man.

Thirty-five years in uniform, according to the South China Morning Post. Training at Peking University, at the Scottish Police College, at Britain’s Royal College of Defence Studies, according to his biography.

And he says the Department of Justice is consulted before every operation. In his eyes, that is a safeguard.

I’ll concede this much: a list would not settle everything.

And yet the argument turns around. Without a list, every title of tomorrow is already suspect. Nobody knows until the raid.

A list can fall behind. No list is always behind.

A word with no definition

2021, the liaison office

Where does soft resistance come from?

The term first appeared in 2021 in a speech by Luo Huining, then director of Beijing’s liaison office in Hong Kong, HKFP recalls. Since then, Hong Kong officials have cited it as a threat. With no clear definition.

On Monday, September 21, Secretary for Security Chris Tang called it the “most malicious” threat to national security in the city, according to HKFP.

The top threat

On September 22, on RTHK, Kan went the same way. National security laws have made street violence disappear, he said. Soft resistance remains. More hidden. No less present.

He ranks it as the top threat to national security. He adds that artificial intelligence could be used to produce material hostile to the government.

He also cites interference by foreign governments, and fugitives who, in his view, ally themselves with foreign forces. Those forces, he says, seek to politicize everything with false information. He calls for more national security education.

A top threat. A threat without definition. A threat recognized by a question asked.

One blurry word, and every question becomes evidence.

February, the Tai Po fire

Three charged

The pattern of silence recurs elsewhere in his record.

On February 11, at a press conference, Kan announced that three people had been charged under Article 23 over remarks about the Wang Fuk Court fire in Tai Po, HKFP reports. That November fire had left 168 dead.

Remarks about a collective disaster. Turned into national security cases.

No figure

How many arrests in all? Kan says he cannot disclose that. Investigations are ongoing, according to HKFP.

There is no list of books. There is no count of arrests. There is no definition of soft resistance. No seized title made public. No written threshold.

Each time, the same absence. Each time, the same justification: saying would harm the investigation, or invite workarounds.

Where the number is missing, fear takes its place.

The bookseller becomes the censor

The list inside the head

Back to the list. It has changed since the first paragraph.

At the start, there was no list. Now we understand there is one. It isn’t published. It lives in every bookseller’s head.

The bookseller rereads a back cover. Turns the book over. Puts it in a box, at the back of the storeroom. The packing tape screeches as it unrolls.

The box stays there. With the book inside. And with the question of whether…

Nobody banned it. Nobody flagged it. He pulled it himself.

Fear, here, makes no noise. It takes the shape of a cardboard box.

That is what the absence of a list produces. Not a censorship you can challenge before a judge. A censorship each person imposes on himself, in silence, so as not to end up like the Mong Kok five.

A single voice

After the July raids, only one Hong Kong civil society organization protested publicly, HKFP reports. The Society for Truth and Light. A conservative Christian NGO.

Refusing to publish a list, it said, amounts to an abuse of power. It undermines the rule of law.

A single voice.

In a city where dozens of civil society groups have disappeared since the 2020 law, according to HKFP.

With no published list, every bookseller keeps his own.

What nobody counts

No register

How many titles have left the shelves since July? How many bookstores have closed?

I found no public count. Not from the government. Not from the police.

The absence draws the portrait. A department that says it reads the books. And publishes neither the titles seized nor the number of titles targeted.

A closure foretold

We know one thing. Have a Nice Stay had announced its closure the day before the raid. The authorities, the bookstore wrote, never specified which books could be legally sold.

The rest can’t be counted. It can only be guessed. Shop windows that change. Shelves that thin out.

The government can state the age of an arrested bookseller. It cannot say, in public, how many books have vanished from the tables.

And yet a count probably exists somewhere: the one the police keep for their own investigations.

What isn’t counted in public is counted elsewhere.

Kelvin Kong takes over

September 22, the oath

On September 22, John Lee appointed Kelvin Kong, Kong Hok-lai in full, as head of the department. Kan retires. Kong was sworn in the same day, according to the government.

The chief executive calls him firm and courageous. Determined to safeguard national security.

Kong has thirty years of police service. He has served in the department since the national security law took effect.

He has been under U.S. sanctions since January 2021, for his role in enforcing the law, HKFP recalls.

It isn’t the first time he has followed Kan. On May 2, 2023, the same release that appointed Kan head of the department announced Kong’s promotion to director of national security. The post Kan was leaving.

Twice, the same handover. Twice, the same house.

Beijing consulted in writing

One detail matters. According to The Standard, the head of the department is appointed by the chief executive. He must first seek, in writing, the opinion of the central government’s office for safeguarding national security in Hong Kong.

So the post Kan is leaving is no ordinary local post. Beijing has a written say in it.

The man changes. The method stays.

And yet nothing requires a new chief to keep the old one’s silence. A list can be published any morning.

A new chief, the same missing list.

Booksellers arrested with no written rule

Three dated acts

I don’t judge the man. I judge his acts. Dated.

He led, from May 2023, the department that arrested booksellers without publishing the rule they had supposedly broken. He defended, on September 25, the absence of that rule. He called the request to know it a form of resistance.

These are acts. They can be read in his own words. And in his government’s press releases.

I ascribe no intention to him. I don’t need to. His words are enough.

The law comes from Beijing

The underlying decision isn’t his alone. The law comes from Beijing. His appointment goes through a written opinion from Beijing. John Lee’s government refuses the list.

But for more than three years Kan was the police face of this system. And he chose to leave defending its blind spot.

The people of Hong Kong are not at issue. What is at issue is a power that prefers blur to rules.

A police officer who reads the books, and won’t say which.

A list in every head

Thousands of lists

In the first paragraph, there was no list.

By the end, there are thousands. One per bookseller. One per publisher. One per reader who hesitates before buying. None is published. All are obeyed.

Andrew Kan retires. The system he defended remains, in Kelvin Kong’s hands.

Emptying the shelves

If asking where the line runs becomes a form of resistance, what is left to the bookseller but to empty the shelves?

The question holds for Hong Kong. It holds for any city that lets the rule fall silent.

The box, at the back of the storeroom, makes no noise.

There is still no list. The bookseller still carries the risk.

Sources:

Primary Sources:

• Government of Hong Kong — five arrested by the national security police, July 15, 2026
• Government of Hong Kong — Kelvin Kong replaces Andrew Kan, September 22, 2026
• Government of Hong Kong — Andrew Kan appointed head of the department, May 2, 2023

Secondary Sources:

• Hong Kong Free Press — Andrew Kan and soft resistance, September 25, 2026
• RTHK — soft resistance as the top threat, according to Andrew Kan, September 22, 2026
• The Standard — Kelvin Kong heads the department after Beijing’s written opinion, September 22, 2026