China’s Premier Li Qiang expected to visit Australia despite Yang Hengjun’s death sentence
Preparations for the first visit by a Chinese leader to Australia in seven years remain underway despite the death sentence given to Yang Hengjun and calls to delay it by his supporters.
Preparations for the first visit by a Chinese leader to Australia in seven years remain under way despite the death sentence given to Dr Yang Hengjun, as the Albanese government argues high-level dialogue is the best way to deal with its growing list of “pointy disputes” with Beijing.
The Prime Minister on Tuesday refused to comment on whether the suspended death sentence for the Australian citizen would derail the visit by Premier Li Qiang. “We’ll respond directly and clearly and unequivocally to China. What we won’t do is conduct diplomatic negotiations through the media,” Mr Albanese said.
But people familiar with the preparations for what would be the first visit to Australia by a Chinese leader since 2017 said it was expected to go ahead later in the year.
It would be only the third time a Chinese premier or president has visited Australia since Xi Jinping’s elevation to the pinnacle of the Communist Party in late 2012.
Dr Yang’s death sentence on charges of espionage – which may be reduced to life in prison after two years of good behaviour – is the latest stress on Australia’s only recently stabilised diplomatic relationship with China.
Australia’s new ambassador to China, Scott Dewar, was in the Beijing No. 2 Intermediate People’s Court on Monday to hear the decision, which the government called “harrowing”. Dr Yang’s supporters said the espionage charges were “fabricated”.
The judgment was delivered just weeks after China’s ambassador to Australia, Xiao Qian, last month claimed the Albanese government had lied about the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s Navy’s use of a sonar in waters near Japan.
Both episodes have illustrated the political risk that looms over any visit to Australia by a Chinese leader. However, the Albanese government has continued to maintain that disagreements only make high-level dialogue more important.
“They are still going to want Premier Li to come to Australia and they won’t put that visit on ice because of a decision like this that Canberra is deeply unsatisfied with,” said Benjamin Herscovitch, author of Beijing to Canberra and Back, a newsletter that tracks Australia-China relations.
“The list of really pointy disputes between Canberra and Beijing is very, very long – it has been for a long time. But that doesn’t change the need to have direct dialogue on all those points of disagreement,” Dr Herscovitch told The Australian.
However, UTS China studies associate professor Feng Chongyi called for the Albanese government to make the release of his friend Dr Yang a precondition for any visit. “You cannot carry on business as usual when an Australian citizen is abused to such an extent,” Dr Feng said.
“If you keep everything on track, it’s moral bankruptcy,” the academic added.
Many in Australia’s lobster and wine industries are hoping that a visit could nudge China to end its black-listing and punitive tariffs on their products.
No live lobsters from Australia have been legally exported to China since November 2020, although smugglers have brought the product into the country through Hong Kong and Taiwan, taking the once fat margins of Australian producers. Beijing has agreed to review an almost 200 per cent tariff that it imposed on Australian wine in return for Canberra halting a case against it in the World Trade Organisation.
National president of the Australia China Business Council David Olsson said while the precise timing of Mr Li’s visit was unclear it was expected to go ahead this year despite “enduring complexities” in the relationship.
“Diplomats from both nations will be assessing this carefully, with the final decision being a top-level political one,” Mr Olsson told The Australian.
Additional reporting: Sarah Ison
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