Australian writer receives suspended death sentence from Beijing court

A Beijing court gave Australian writer Yang Hengjun a suspended death sentence, jeopardizing recent improvements in Beijing-Canberra relations

On Monday, a Beijing court issued a suspended death sentence to Australian writer Yang Hengjun, posing a threat to the recent improvement in relations between Beijing and Canberra after years of tension.

The decision, made five years after Yang’s detention in China and three years after his closed-door trial on espionage charges, has shocked his family and supporters. 

Yang, an Australian citizen born in China and a pro-democracy blogger, was working in New York before his arrest at Guangzhou airport in 2019. He was accused of spying for an undisclosed country, and the specifics of the case against him have not been publicly disclosed. 

According to Sydney-based scholar Feng Chongyi, the court’s ruling entails a suspended death sentence that would be commuted to life imprisonment after two years. Feng described the case as a grave injustice, emphasizing Yang’s denial of the charges. He asserted that Yang’s punishment stemmed from his criticism of human rights abuses in China and his advocacy for universal values such as human rights, democracy, and the rule of law. 

Feng urged the Australian government to pursue medical parole for Yang, citing the detrimental impact of five years of detention on his health. Another human rights lawyer in Beijing, who has been monitoring the case, confirmed Yang’s sentence, stating that he was found guilty of all charges. 

Australia expressed deep dismay at the court’s decision and summoned China’s ambassador. Foreign Minister Penny Wong conveyed the government’s understanding that the sentence could be commuted to life imprisonment if no serious crimes were committed during the two-year period. 

Yang’s family, based in Sydney, expressed shock and devastation at the news, which exceeded their worst expectations. His two sons, residing in Australia, had previously appealed to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to seek their father’s release on medical grounds. 

Supporters have argued that Yang should be granted medical parole, particularly after he was informed of a sizable cyst on his kidney that may necessitate surgery. Australia had voiced concern over repeated delays in Yang’s case and had advocated for his well-being, including access to medical treatment, at the highest levels. 

The Chinese foreign ministry did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment. Yang’s trial took place in secret in May 2021, and the details of the case against him remain undisclosed. In letters from jail, Yang has consistently denied any wrongdoing. 

Prior to his arrest in 2019, Yang, a prominent blogger, had written about Chinese and U.S. politics while living in New York as a visiting scholar at Columbia University. He supplemented his income by working as an online shopping agent for Chinese consumers seeking U.S. products. Yang was apprehended during a visit to China in January 2019, accompanied by his wife. 

This isn’t the first time Yang has encountered trouble in China. In 2011, he was briefly detained on suspicion of connections to online democracy activists but was released after Australian government intervention. Yang had previously disclosed to Feng that he had worked for China’s Ministry of State Security for a decade before moving to Australia. 

Yang migrated to Australia in 1999, became a citizen in 2002, and pursued PhD studies at the University of Technology in Sydney, where Feng was his supervisor. Following this, Yang spent four years writing spy novels published in Taiwan, featuring a double agent with a surname similar to his own. 

His detention in 2019 occurred amidst deteriorating Australia-China relations. The release of Australian broadcaster Cheng Lei shortly before Albanese’s visit to China had raised hopes for Yang’s release. 

The verdict has cast a shadow over bilateral ties, serving as a stark reminder of the opacity of the Chinese system and its resistance to foreign complaints, according to Richard McGregor, a senior fellow at the Lowy Institute in Sydney. James Laurenceson, director of the Australia-China Relations Institute, noted that Beijing’s decision would make it more challenging to thaw the strained relations between the two countries. 

Elaine Pearson, who leads Human Rights Watch in Asia, condemned the sentence as “outrageous” and urged the Australian government to collaborate with other nations with citizens arbitrarily detained, including Canada, Japan, and the U.S. 

Source: Newsroom