China Seizes $13K Worth of Toilet Paper Showing Hong Kong Leader

Apparently Leung Chun-ying isn't so popular
By Matt Cantor,  Newser Staff
Posted Feb 7, 2015 6:05 PM CST
China Seizes $13K Worth of Toilet Paper Showing Hong Kong Leader
Rolls of toilet paper and packages of tissue paper printed with images of pro-Beijing Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying are shown by Hong Kong Democratic Party Vice Chairman Lo Kin-hei at his office in Hong Kong Saturday, Feb. 7, 2015. Lo said Saturday Chinese authorities seized about 8,000...   (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)

China has taken a strong interest in the intimate details of Hong Kong hygiene. Officials in China's south have seized some 8,000 rolls of toilet paper marked with the face of Leung Chun-ying, Hong Kong's chief executive, the AP reports. That amounts to about $12,900 worth of bathroom tissue. The Beijing-appointed leader is considered by many in Hong Kong to be the mainland's "puppet," NPR notes, and products that make fun of him have been big sellers, the BBC reports.

Hong Kong's Democratic Party had intended to hawk the toilet paper at an upcoming fair; last year, 4,000 rolls of the stuff sold out, the AP reports. The toilet paper was made at a factory in Shenzhen, mainland China, says the Democratic Party's vice-chairman, refusing to name the factory over safety concerns. He tells the AP he doesn't currently know where the owner of the factory is: "We are worried about what has happened to him." (More China stories.)

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