China claims Australian police raided homes of Chinese reporters

In the wake of two Aussie journalists being evacuated from China, Beijing has made claims of “hypocrisy and double standards” by Australia.

The Australian Financial Review's Michael Smith (left) and the ABC's Bill Birtles flew out of Shanghai on Monday night. Picture: ABC

In the wake of two Australian journalists being rushed out of China by their news organisations over fears they were no longer safe, the nation’s state-run media have claimed Chinese journalists were subjected to similar treatment while working here.

The ABC’s Bill Birtles and The Australian Financial Review’s Michael Smith were the final two Australian correspondents working in China, but were flown out of the country on Monday night after local police demanded interviews with both journalists.

The pair had been questioned separately by China’s Ministry of State security after carrying out normal reporting duties, in what the AFR’s editor-in-chief labelled “regrettable and disturbing”.

But multiple Chinese media stories have now claimed Australian anti-foreign interference investigators targeted four Chinese state-media journalists who were working in Australia in June, raiding their homes and seizing their phones and laptops, Birtles wrote in a tweet this morning.

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Multiple Chinese media stories now out claiming Australian anti-foreign interference investigators targeted 4 Chinese state media journalists in late June, seizing phones and laptops but ultimately finding they hadn’t done any activities that didn’t accord w/ their identities. pic.twitter.com/M1FWgtCbJl

— Bill Birtles (@billbirtles) September 8, 2020

“Such behaviour severely infringed on the legitimate rights of Chinese journalists, and the incident exposed Australia’s hypocrisy in upholding so-called ‘freedom of the press’, experts said,” an article in Chinese tabloid the Global Times said, claiming they’d been informed of the raids by a “source close to the matter”.

“Australia flagrantly infringed on the legitimate rights and interests of journalists from Chinese media and institutions in Australia in the name of a possible violation of Australia’s anti-foreign interference law, seriously disrupting the normal and people-to-people exchanges between China and Australia, poisoning relations, the source said, noting that it was a serious political incident.”

The Times accused Australia of “hypocrisy and double standards”, calling the alleged acts against the Chinese journalists “brutal and barbaric”.

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Australian journalist Bill Birtles pictured at Sydney Airport on Tuesday. Picture: 9News

Michael Smith speaks to the media on his arrival at Sydney airport on Tuesday. Picture: Australian Broadcasting Corporation via AP

Chinese news service Xinhua is also running a report of the raids, headlined “White terror in Australia”, the AFR reports.

The Xinhua story alleges the raids were conducted in connection with the foreign interference investigation that led to raids on NSW Labor MP Shaoquett Mosalmane’s home and Parliament House office on June 26, over claims his office had been infiltrated by Chinese agents.

It is understood the Chinese embassy has complained about the raids to the Federal Government.

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According to Nine News’ Political Editor Chris Uhlmann, they were told they were “people of interest” in the high-profile Australian journalist Cheng Lei’s case.

Ms Cheng, a prominent anchor on state-owned English news channel China Global Television Network (CGTN), has been detained in China for weeks.

Speaking to media at the airport yesterday morning, Birtles said it was “very disappointing to leave the country under those circumstances”.

“But it’s a relief to be back in a country with genuine rule of law,” he said.

The ABC organised flights back to Australia for Birtles last Thursday morning, however increasingly “threatening” behaviour from Chinese officials peaked before he could leave.

Birtles has been the ABC’s China correspondent, based in Beijing, since 2015 and has extensively covered the rise of Xi Jinping, the US-China trade war, the Hong Kong protests and rising tensions between Australia and China.

Smith, a former journalist at The Mercury in Hobart, was also questioned on Monday evening, and the AFR made similar arrangements to evacuate their correspondent from the country.