Australian writer Yang Hengjun’s supporters criticise ‘weak’ Albanese government
Yang Hengjun’s supporters have criticised the Albanese government for prioritising pandas and wine over their imprisoned friend as his detention conditions worsen.
Supporters of Australian Yang Hengjun have criticised a “weak” Albanese government for prioritising pandas and wine exports over their imprisoned friend.
Hopes the visit by Chinese Premier Li Qiang could improve the plight of Dr Yang have faded among his supporters, who in recent months had urged the Albanese government to make his release to Australia on medical parole a precondition for the trip.
“I’m quite disappointed,” Feng Chongyi, a close friend of the pro-democracy writer, told The Australian. “It’s a very weak position. They should have put Yang’s release as the top priority, but instead they put pandas [and] the sale of lobster and wine. They got it wrong,” Professor Feng said.
Supporters of journalist Cheng Lei were able to successfully use Anthony Albanese’s visit to China last November to secure her release from Chinese prison on vague national charges.
Cheng, now a presenter on Sky News Australia, was released weeks before the Prime Minister’s visit.
The Australian government has always privately argued that Dr Yang’s former career as a junior agent working for China’s Ministry of State Security made his case much more complicated.
Dr Yang was given a suspended death sentence in February on espionage charges, shocking Canberra and devastating his friends and family.
Foreign Minister Penny Wong on Sunday indicated Dr Yang’s sentence and conditions would be raised in talks on Monday in Canberra with China’s second most senior leader.
“We will continue to advocate for Dr Yang wherever we are able, and we will continue to advocate, including for appropriate medical treatment,” Senator Wong told the ABC.
Instead of respite before the Chinese Premier’s visit, Dr Yang’s supporters say his conditions have worsened. Despite waiving his right to appeal his suspended death sentence in February in an attempt to improve his access to treatment, Dr Yang remains in a detention facility run by the Ministry of State Security, awaiting transfer to a formal prison.
Professor Feng, who teaches China studies at the University of Technology Sydney, said his friend’s kidney remained painful.
He said Dr Yang last year received no medical assistance after he fainted and was so weak he had barely moved for 40 days.
Repeated requests for independent, Australian-government supervised medical assessments have been ignored.
China’s ambassador Xiao Qian recently said Dr Yang’s “health problems are not as serious as that has been described publicly”, an assessment his supporters dismissed.
“His life is really in danger,” Professor Feng said.
The Australian government’s monthly consular access was suspended in June, apparently as preparations are under way to transfer Dr Yang to a formal prison.
In a rare bit of good news, an exit ban on Dr Yang’s wife, Yuan Xiaoliang, has finally been lifted, allowing her to leave China for the first time since her husband was snatched by Chinese state security in January 2019.
Diplomats at Australia’s embassy in Beijing had pressed for an end to the exit ban.
The Chinese Premier on Monday will meet Mr Albanese for leader-level talks in Canberra after a Sunday agenda that began at the panda enclosure at Adelaide Zoo and then moved to a lunch to toast the Australian wine industry, until recently one product on Beijing’s trade sanction list.
The Sydney-based Professor Feng said he would be in Canberra on Monday to join Australian Tibetans, Uighurs, Hong Kongers, Falun Gong practitioners and other human rights protesters. Australian Federal Police have erected barricades in an effort to separate the two groups.
“We want the Chinese [Premier’s] team to see us. See that we are Chinese people and we are different from the Chinese government,” he told The Australian.
“We want to make our position clear: we care about human rights in China. We want Yang Hengjun back in Australia. We need to show our determination and our anger.”
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