UPDATE 1-Sweden says China must release bookseller Gui Minhai from jail

Sweden's foreign minister on Friday, following a visit to Beijing, called on China to release Swedish citizen Gui Minhai from jail, continuing a long diplomatic stand-off between the two countries over the Chinese-born bookseller.

Gui, a Hong Kong-based publisher of books critical of China's communist leaders, was handed a 10-year prison term by Beijing in 2020 for illegally providing intelligence overseas. Swedish Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard, in a post on X, said she had raised the case with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi during her visit.

"Our stance remains firm: Gui Minhai must be released and reunited with his family," Malmer Stenergard wrote. China's foreign ministry on Thursday said that Gui was a Chinese national that Gui was a Chinese national and that it firmly opposes any country, organisation or person interfering with its judicial sovereignty in any form.

Gui, 61, was first abducted in the Thai beach resort of Pattaya in 2015 before surfacing in Chinese detention. He was released in 2017 and detained again by the mainland police in 2018, while with Swedish diplomats on a Beijing-bound train. A court in the eastern Chinese city of Ningbo that sentenced Gui said he had asked to have his Chinese citizenship reinstated.

Sweden at the time said Gui had not asked to have his Swedish citizenship revoked and reiterated demands for his release.