Knock on the door that changed everything for Australian journalists in China

We called ourselves ‘the bargaining chips’ — three Australian journalists enlisted in the wrestling match between China and its largest iron ore supplier.

The Australian Financial Review journalist Michael Smith at Sydney airport on Tuesday. Picture: ABC

We called ourselves “the bargaining chips” — three Australian journalists suddenly enlisted in the no-holds-barred wrestling match between China and its largest iron ore supplier, Australia.

That was before the feared Ministry of State Security knocked on the door of ABC correspondent Bill Birtles’s apartment in Sanlitun, near our favourite Beijing pub, Jing-A, the place we gathered when Phil Wen was kicked out of the country back in February.

Before Mike Smith, The Australian Financial Review’s man in Shanghai, had a similar knock on the door of the palatial Spanish colonial residence in the French Concession that made him the envy of the other two Australian foreign correspondents in China.

Back in another age, last Tuesday week, eight days ago, when Australian journalists working for Australian media still thought we could report safely — or at least a bit more safely — in the People’s Republic of China.

Then everything changed.

Late last Wednesday night, six uniformed MSS officers and their translator arrived at the AFR’s Shanghai palace. They wanted to speak to its occupant about the detention of Cheng Lei, an Australian citizen and business anchor at CGTN, the Chinese state’s English language news channel.

“While I could not make out every word in the three-page statement that was being read to me in Chinese and translated robotically back to me in English, the general gist was that I was a person of interest in a case and I would not be allowed to leave China until I answered questions relating to the investigation,” Mike wrote in his account of his extraordinary last week for the AFR.

Wednesday wasn’t much better 1200km north for the only remaining Australian media correspondent in Beijing.

Bill was hosting a farewell party at his place. Up to that point he thought Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade was straitjacketed by its own caution. Why were they so keen to get him to leave China? Why did he have to leave Beijing? Then came his knock from China’s equivalent of the KGB.

There were seven security officers, two in uniform, another five in plain clothes. They weren’t there to make a noise complaint about the 12 guests helping Bill pack up his life of five years in China’s capital. He too had been enmeshed in the opaque case around Lei. “Wow,” he thought, “The concerns are real.” It seemed DFAT was right.

Back in Sydney, Wednesday was less dramatic for me. Thursday too, although it was a bit weird that Bill and Mike weren’t taking calls like they usually did.

I was booked to return to China on Sunday. I was completely in the dark about what was going on with Bill and Mike.

DFAT could have been clearer that I sit it out for a week until they learned more about Lei’s case.

A departure ban was put on Bill and Mike. Even in President Xi Jinping’s China, that’s not normal.

Both spent the rest of the week holed up in Australia’s embassy in Beijing and consulate in Shanghai, respectively.

Indications were made that they could leave the country only after they were interviewed about Lei. Would they be detained permanently, as Lei has, if they meet?

It was a reasonable concern.

On Sunday, Bill set off from Australia’s Beijing embassy with a senior Australian diplomat to meet China’s security state on level 22 of a hotel in Sanlitun.

The hour long encounter was notable for its imprecision.

At one point, China’s security officials asked if his stories were related to China.

The ABC’s man in China for the last five years told them, yes, always.

Bill has written about what came next.

“The interview turned to the case which I’m supposedly involved in — the national security investigation of Ms Cheng,” he recalled.

“She is someone I know, but not particularly well. I certainly wouldn’t be the first person you would interrogate about her,” he said.

The whole sequence was bizarre. So was the timing.

Days before Bill and Mike’s week from hell began, I got news from Beijing that my visa had been approved after a two month wait. I was thrilled that I could finally return to China with my wife.

But that was back when journalists working for Australian media in China were still joking, albeit darkly, about being “bargaining chips”.

That joke got very old, very fast.