Chinese-Australian writer detained by China receives suspended death sentence

An Australian writer and businessman held in China since 2019 on national security charges was found guilty and given a death sentence on Monday, suspended for two years, according to the Australian government, in a blow to warming Australian-Australian relations. China.

If the businessman, Yang Hengjun, does not commit crimes in those two years, the sentence could be commuted to life imprisonment, Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong said. said in a statement. She described the verdict as 'harrowing'.

The lengthy detention of Mr Yang – also known by his legal name Yang Jun – is one of the sources of tension between Australia and China. Now the harsh sentence could once again weigh on relations, which had improved following the election of a new, centre-left Labor government in Australia in 2022. The Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, visited Beijing late last year and has urged the support of the Mr Yang. Edition.

“The Australian Government will communicate our response in the strongest terms,” Ms Wong said, adding: “We have consistently called for basic standards of justice, procedural fairness and humane treatment for Dr. Yang, in accordance with international standards and Chinese standards. legal obligations.” She said she had instructed officials to bring in Xiao Qian, the Chinese ambassador to Australia.

Ms Wong's statement did not provide details of the specific charges against Mr Yang or what crime he was found guilty of. The severity of the sentence suggests that a Chinese court has found him guilty of espionage. for which he was tried in 2021.

Mr Yang, 58, was born in China and became an Australian citizen in 2000. He completed a dissertation there that focused on the Internet and democratization in China. Mr. Yang, who described himself as a former employee of the Chinese Foreign Ministry. He had been critical of human rights abuses under the Chinese government, but became more cautious in his public comments in the years before his detention, as dissent in China came under tighter scrutiny.

He disappeared in early 2019, shortly after arriving in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou from New York, where he had been a visiting scholar at Columbia University. According to Ms Wong's statement, he was held for more than two years before undergoing a closed-door trial in May 2021. The final verdict and sentence had been repeatedly postponed.

The espionage charges Yang faced were “fabricated,” his friend Feng Chongyi, a professor at Sydney University of Technology who was himself detained by Chinese authorities in 2017, said in an email.

“This is a serious case of injustice, but Dr. Yang cannot appeal due to his poor health,” he said. “Five years of arbitrary detention and torture have taken a heavy toll on his health. He is now seriously ill. The top priority for Dr. Yang is to immediately receive proper medical treatment under medical condition.”

Mr. Yang told the supporters the previous year, a large cyst had developed in his kidney that he feared would kill him in prison without adequate treatment.

“The entire prosecution, which lasted five years, was shrouded in secrecy and fraught with allegations of torture and ill-treatment,” said Yaqiu Wang, the China research director for Freedom House, an advocacy group critical of the Chinese government's record. in the field of human rights. , according to a written response to questions. “Beijing's complete disregard for international human rights laws and norms is now extending to citizens of other countries.”

In a September 2020 message relayed to his family and supporters from a Beijing detention center, Mr Yang proclaimed his innocence and vowed to fight to the end. “I will never admit to something I didn't do,” he said.

The verdict comes as once-icy relations between Australia and China showed signs of thawing, with the two nations taking steps toward rapprochement for months, starting with the change in Australia's government. That was followed by meetings between the two countries' foreign ministers, the release in October of a detained Australian journalist and, in November, the first visit by an Australian Prime Minister to Beijing since 2016.

Speaking in Beijing in November 2023, Australian Prime Minister Mr Albanese said it was in the interests of both countries, their economies and the security of the wider region to 'stabilize' their relationship.