‘Hostage diplomacy’: Yang Hengjun death sentence rocks relationship with China

Australia and China’s push to stabilise relations after years of turmoil has been shattered by the shock suspended death sentence handed to Australian academic Yang Hengjun after five years of being held on vague espionage charges.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong has vowed to pursue every possible avenue to secure a more lenient sentence for the father of two after the pro-democracy writer was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve by a Chinese court.

The severity of the decision stunned Australian diplomats and Yang’s relatives, who say they fear he will die in prison as his health is declining.

Australian writer Yang Hengjun has been detained for five years in China.Credit: Sanghee Liu

Wong summoned China’s ambassador to Australia Xiao Qian to meet with Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade Secretary Jan Adams on Monday afternoon for a dressing down that lasted approximately 20 minutes.

“The Australian government is appalled by this decision,” Wong said. “The Australian government will be communicating our response in the strongest terms. Australia will not relent in either advocacy for justice for Dr Yang’s interests and his wellbeing.”

Chinese ambassador to Australia Xiao Qian arrives for a meeting with Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade Secretary Jan Adams on Monday. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

The sentence in effect means the pro-democracy writer will spend the rest of his life in prison unless he can make a successful appeal through China’s opaque judicial system. China’s closed-door courts have a 99 per cent conviction rate. If he reoffends during the two-year suspension period, Yang could face execution by lethal injection.

Human rights experts believe the sentence is the harshest handed down to a foreigner for espionage in China in recent memory.

The 57-year-old was arrested at Guangzhou airport after arriving from New York in 2019 and has since has spent more than five years in jail on claims of espionage.

The details of the charges against Yang have never been revealed, but the allegations of spying have always been strongly denied by the federal government and his family.

A spokesman for Yang’s family said the sentence “comes at the extreme end of worst expectations”.

“The family is obviously shocked and devastated by this news,” he said.

Yang’s two sons repeated their message to their father and his supporters in October last year.

“He is in jail because he represents truth, democracy, respectful exchange of rational ideas,” they said.

Yang’s supporter Dr Feng Chongyi accused the Chinese government of “outrageous political persecution”. Yang’s blog was critical of Beijing and promoted “practising law, fairness and justice, social justice, freedom, and democracy”.

Detained Australian Yang Hengjun and his wife.

Yang worked for China’s Ministry of State Security before migrating to Australia in 1998.

“He is punished by the Chinese government for his criticism of human rights abuses in China,” said Feng, who supervised Yang’s PhD thesis at the University of Technology, Sydney.

Amnesty International Australia said it was horrified by the sentence while Human Rights Watch Australia described the sentence as “catastrophic”.

“To this day, the Chinese authorities have failed to substantiate their allegations that Hengjun is a spy, and he has consistently denied these allegations,” an Amnesty International spokesperson said. “This sentence and his prosecution appear to be purely motivated by Hengjun’s advocacy for democracy and because of his writings critical of the Chinese government.”

Feng said his friend would struggle to appeal the verdict due to poor health.

“Five years of arbitrary detention and torture have taken a heavy toll on his health. He is now critically ill. The top priority for Dr Yang is to receive proper medical treatment on medical parole immediately,” he said.

Opposition foreign affairs spokesman Simon Birmingham described the decision as “deeply distressing” and a “painful blow” to Yang and his family.

“I’m sure Australians will be aghast and appalled at the decision of Chinese authorities to level a sentence of this nature against an Australian citizen,” he said.

Birmingham said the government should make advocating for Yang’s release its top priority in discussions with Chinese officials.

Australian Strategic Policy Institute executive director Justin Bassi said the “appalling” sentence was a form of “hostage diplomacy”.

“This ruling shows up as farcical any Chinese government claim to be seeking a better relationship with Australia,” he said.

“Stabilisation to Beijing means pressuring Australia into a permanent state of silence and submissiveness.”

A consular report by Australian officials who visited Yang in jail in October said his health had been rapidly declining. Yang said he had trouble standing and had collapsed several times after struggling with a 10-centimetre cyst on his kidney.

“The risk of being left to die from medical maltreatment is especially clear to our father because he has seen it happen to his friends,” his sons said.

Asked if the suspended death sentence would prevent Yang’s family from continuing to advocate for him for the next two years, Wong said she did not want to speculate on the restrictions imposed by the Chinese court. “All I would say is that he has appeal options available to him,” she said.

The release of fellow Australian Cheng Lei in October before Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s visit to Beijing had raised hopes of a resolution for Yang after a year of steadily improving diplomatic and economic ties between the nations.

Lowy Institute senior fellow Richard McGregor said he believed the case had been handled by the Ministry of State Security, which would have been largely indifferent to the verdict’s impact on China-Australia relations.

McGregor said Monday’s decision would have a “severe impact on bilateral relations”.

“It displays on a wide screen the opacity of the Chinese legal system, its imperviousness to reasonable requests by foreign governments on behalf of their citizens and its vindictiveness to people who challenge it,” he said.

“This sentence is at the most extreme end of the spectrum in terms of what could have been expected. The inescapable conclusion is that he will die in prison.”

Rory Medcalf, head of the Australian National University’s National Security College, said Yang had been handed “a death sentence by another name” and that the fragile stabilisation of Australia-China relations had reached its limit.

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