Yang Hengjun: How a spy novelist ended up being seized in China on espionage allegations

THE Australian citizen arrested on suspicion of espionage in China started his journey from spy novelist to democracy activist at a simple meeting in Sydney’s west.

THE Australian citizen Chinese authorities have arrested on suspicion of espionage started his journey from spy novelist to democracy activist at a meeting in Sydney’s west.

News Corp Australia can reveal the turning point in former diplomat Yang Hengjun’s life was a visit to the Ashfield home of Professor Feng Chongyi in 2005.

“That was the beginning of his reformation into a liberal scholar — the start of his career as a political dissident,” Professor Feng told News Corp Australia yesterday.

Mr Yang made the visit to convince the UTS academic to oversee a PhD on the relationship between the internet and the Chinese government.

Professor Feng not only agreed to take Mr Yang on as a student, he made him general manager of his Chinese-language newspaper, the Sydney Times, which commenced publishing in 2006. The masthead did not last long though, with Chinese government interference leading advertisers to pull out.

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Still, his thesis was completed in 2009 — a decade after he had moved to Australia.

He came here from Hong Kong, where he had run a business.

It was there his views on the Communist Party began to sour. He had earlier worked in Beijing at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

After coming to Australia he became a citizen, along with his then wife and two sons.

And it was while living in Sydney that Yang self-published a trilogy of Chinese-language spy novels, portraying the competition between Chinese and US intelligence services.

The novels entranced another Sydney academic, who introduced Yang into the city’s community of Chinese writers.

Yang Hengjun. Supplied

That academic — who asked not to be named for fear of what the Chinese government might do to his relatives in China — said: “I know Mr Yang for a long time. He is a really soft critic of the Chinese Communist Party.

“But at the moment the Chinese authorities cannot tolerate any criticism. So it’s very serious.

“Many Australian politicians do not understand this, but the situation for many Chinese people in Australia is very bad. They have a fear because they still have business or family in China.”

There were reports late yesterday that Mr Yang had been charged. Staff from Australia’s Embassy in Beijing were also permitted to visit.

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A spokeswoman for China’s Foreign Ministry had earlier only said Mr Yang “is being investigated by Beijing State Security Bureau in accordance with the law on suspicion of engaging in criminal activities that endanger China’s national security. This case is still under investigation.”

The spokeswoman said it had “made official notification” to the Australian Embassy in China.

Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade was contacted but did not respond before deadline.

Prof Feng said a lawyer he arranged in China for Mr Yang’s second wife had told him Mr Yang was in a “black jail” — a special type of detention that would see Mr Yang subjected to “serious interrogation”.

Mr Yang was detained last week after flying to Guangzhou from New York where he had been living and working as an academic at Columbia University.

China’s move against Mr Yang has been interpreted as being part of its retaliation against the West for Canada’s arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou at the behest of the United States.