Detained Australian Yang Hengjun’s sons’ plea for Anthony Albanese to save their dad

Detained Australian writer Yang Hengjun’s sons have pleaded with Anthony Albanese to hold off on restoring the countries’ fractured ties until their father is released.

Dr Yang Hengjun

Detained Australian writer Yang Hengjun’s sons have pleaded with Anthony Albanese to make it clear before he travels to China on Saturday that there will be no stabilisation of the countries’ fractured relationship until their father is released.

Their appeal, in a five-page letter to the Prime Minister, says Dr Yang’s health has “rapidly declined” in recent weeks, and he risks dying from “calculated medical neglect”.

It comes amid calls by Australian Uighur, Tibetan and Hong Kong communities for Mr Albanese to speak out publicly against China’s “crimes against humanity” during his November 4-7 visit to Shanghai and Beijing.

The Australian can reveal Mr Albanese will be accompanied by Penny Wong on the Beijing leg of his trip, and the Foreign Minister will sit in on his meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Qiang.

The Prime Minister on Tuesday vowed to raise Dr Yang’s case with China’s leaders and press the need for Beijing to abide by international laws, particularly in the South China Sea, where Chinese vessels are harassing rival territorial claimants including The Philippines.

Dr Yang’s sons said they were inspired by Australian journalist Cheng Lei’s release by Chinese authorities more than a fortnight ago, and hoped the Prime Minister and his team could “achieve a second miracle by saving our father”.

Their letter, dated October 28, includes notes by Australian officials who were allowed to see Dr Yang in detention last week, revealing the dissident writer was now largely bedridden, and struggling to walk 4m from his cell bed to the toilet.

“The risk of our father being left to die from calculated medical neglect is clear to anyone who has read Wednesday’s consular report,” they said. “We request that you do all in your power to save our father’s life and return him immediately to family and freedom in Australia.”

Dr Yang’s sons, who asked not to be identified, urged Mr Albanese to “act now, in this narrow window of opportunity prior to your departure”, to convey that their father’s release is crucial to improving bilateral ties.

“We ask that you make clear that it is not possible to stabilise the bilateral relationship with a government that is holding an Australian citizen just a few kilometres south of where you will be hosted,” they said. Australian embassy officials said in their latest report on Dr Yang, previously diagnosed with a 10cm cyst on a kidney, that he “looked pale and had lost weight”. He told them: “I’m sick, I’m weak, I’m dying.”

Dr Yang, who has been charged for alleged espionage offences without an official verdict against him, has now been detained by Chinese authorities for four years and nine months.

His sons described him as “an extraordinary father” and “a proud Australian who loves this country and all it has given us”.

Dr Yang’s doctoral supervisor, Chongyi Feng, a professor at the University of Technology Sydney, said Mr Albanese’s visit provided “a rare chance” to save his friend, urging the Prime Minister to prioritise his release over repairing the countries’ trade ties.

“It’s morally indefensible to put short-term commercial interests ahead of safety and human rights of Australian citizens and fully normalise relations with China when the (Chinese Communist Party) keeps Yang as a hostage,”

Australian authorities always believed Dr Yang’s case would be a tougher one to resolve than that of Ms Cheng, as he is believed to have once worked for China’s main intelligence agency, the Ministry of State Security.

Mr Albanese said on Tuesday: “Each case is different, but each case is important. And we will continue to raise these issues and continue to raise Australia's national interest.”

Australian Uighur community activist Ramila Chanisheff also warned Mr Albanese to put human rights first in his talks with President Xi and Premier Li, amid the ongoing detention of an estimated one million Turkic-speaking Muslims in re-education camps in China’s northwestern region of Xinjiang.

“The Chinese government is committing crimes against humanity against Uighurs, including the forcible removal of Uighur children into Chinese boarding schools, whose parents are in exile or interned and detained,” she said. “Trade must not trump human rights abuses during the Prime Minister’s visit to China.”

Australian Tibetan community spokesman Tsewang Thupten said Mr Albanese “can no longer ignore the fact that Australia’s economic partnership aids in normalising China’s egregious human rights abuses in Tibet, where nearly a million Tibetan children have been forcibly separated from their families”.

The Prime Minister confirmed he would raise human rights issues during the trip, and “the importance of the rite of passage” in the South China Sea.

He also emphasised the economic importance of the trip following years of Chinese trade bans on Australian products, noting “one in four of Australia’s export dollars is dependent upon the China relationship”.

Labor has worked to take the heat out of the Australia-China relationship through painstaking diplomacy and cautious public statements, after tensions flared under the Turnbull and Morrison governments, sparking a three-year campaign of economic coercion by Beijing.

Mr Albanese said the China visit was in itself a positive thing, as he lauded “real breakthroughs” in Australia-China relations.

“We have different political systems, of course, and different values, but it always makes sense to have dialogue and to be talking,” he told ABC radio.

But Scott Morrison urged caution, warning China was likely to “misuse” the visit to bolster international support for its foreign policy.

Additional reporting: Adam Creighton