China on Monday gave an Australian citizen a suspended death sentence after he was found guilty of espionage, a heavy sentence that comes as Beijing steps up warnings about foreign spy infiltration.
Yang Hengjun, an Australian citizen born in China, also known as Yang Jun, was detained in 2019 and charged with endangering national security, a crime that covers espionage.
Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong said on Monday she was “shocked” by the verdict and said she had summoned China’s ambassador to Canberra in protest. Huang Yingxian said in a statement issued earlier in the day that the news was “distressing” for Yang Hengjun and his family. Huang Yingxian said that as far as she understood, if he behaved well, the suspended death sentence could be commuted to life imprisonment after two years. In China, the sentence commuted to life imprisonment for a suspended prisoner cannot exceed 25 years.
China has provided few details about the case other than to say Yang Hengjun was found guilty of espionage. China has provided no evidence to support this allegation. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said on Monday that the People’s Court heard the case strictly in accordance with the law and fully protected Yang Jun’s various litigation rights.
Yang Hengjun, a blogger, political commentator and spy novelist who says he served as a Chinese diplomat before immigrating to Australia, has sometimes been sharply critical of China’s ruling Communist Party on social media.
In an article published in The Diplomat, a Tokyo-based online current affairs magazine, Yang reflected on the shortcomings of China’s one-party system, China’s lack of freedom of speech and the fate of democracy in Taiwan. In his first novel, “Achilles Heel,” the protagonist works as a double agent for the United States and China, but in reality only pursues his own personal interests.
Yang Hengjun’s sentencing comes as China warns its citizens to be wary of national security threats after tightening its counterespionage laws last April.
China’s spy agency, the Ministry of State Security, has used its new social media accounts to publish a series of articles in recent weeks, including several that claimed to have uncovered foreign intelligence operations. Last month, for example, the agency said it detained a citizen from an unnamed third country who it said was spying for Britain while he was the head of a consulting agency in China.
Australia is one of the United States’ closest allies in the region, and Yang’s sentencing threatens to undo the recent growing thaw in relations between the two countries. China and Australia have only recently begun to rebuild ties after years of hostility, with a thaw that included resolving a trade dispute and China releasing another detained Australian citizen.
The details of the Yang Hengjun espionage case have been shrouded in mystery for the past five years, mirroring other cases of alleged foreign infiltration.
For example, The Wall Street Journal reported last month that China had imprisoned British businessman Ian J. Stones for more than five years, but neither the Chinese nor the British governments have publicly raised the case. The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs responded that Stones was sentenced to five years in prison for illegally selling intelligence overseas.
There was no sign of Yang Hengjun’s sentencing.
Feng Chongyi, a China studies professor at the University of Technology Sydney and former doctoral supervisor of Yang Hengjun, quoted people at the scene of the judgment as saying that the Beijing Second Intermediate People’s Court made the judgment at 9:30 a.m. local time.
Feng Chongyi quoted people present as saying that Yang Hengjun was accused of leaking state secrets to a Taiwanese intelligence officer in 1994. Feng Chongyi called these accusations purely “fabricated” and a “heinous political persecution.”
The official term for Yang Hengjun’s sentence is “death penalty suspended for two years.” Compared with the death penalty, suspended death is relatively more common. If you perform well during the two-year suspended period, the sentence can be commuted to life imprisonment.
Feng Chongyi said that once the sentence is commuted to life imprisonment, Beijing and Canberra will have legal basis to send Yang Hengjun back to Australia. However, he said China could continue to pressure Australia to obtain more concessions until Yang was released and returned to Australia.
Feng Chongyi said he called on the Australian government to push for Yang Hengjun to be released on medical parole, and pointed out that five years of detention had taken a toll on Yang Hengjun’s body.
According to the consular report submitted by Australian officials who visited Yang Hengjun in October, Yang Hengjun fainted several times last year and had difficulty walking short distances from bed to the toilet. Yang Hengjun’s two sons wrote to Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese last year. The report was also cited in the letter.
In the letter seen by The Wall Street Journal, Yang’s two sons wrote that authorities discovered a cyst on Yang’s kidney but refused to provide him with more information.
Dominic Meagher, deputy director of the John Curtin Research Center, a Melbourne-based think tank, said Yang Hengjun’s sentencing is likely to intensify relations between Australia and China after a period of warming.
Meagher said the verdict was a slap in the face to Australia. He said the decision to imprison Yang Hengjun in China permanently prolongs the problem and makes cooperation between the two countries more difficult.
In January 2019, Yang Hengjun was detained at the airport after arriving in Guangzhou, a city in southern China, by flight from New York. Initially, Yang Hengjun was placed under “residential surveillance at a designated location,” a form of detention in which authorities hold suspects in secret locations for interrogation. Six months later Yang Hengjun was formally arrested.
Yang’s detention comes at a time of rapid deterioration in Australia-China relations, as the two sides tussle over their influence in the South Pacific and whether Australia will allow Chinese telecommunications equipment maker Huawei Technologies to do business in the country. Relations between the two countries further soured after China imposed trade restrictions on Australian beef, barley and wine after then-Prime Minister Scott Morrison called for an investigation into the origins of COVID-19.
A month before Yang Hengjun was detained, in December 2018, the Chinese government detained Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor on suspicion of endangering national security, which Ottawa and Washington said were This is China’s retaliation for Canada’s arrest of Huawei’s chief financial officer.
It was not until Anthony Albanese took office as Prime Minister of Australia in May 2022 that the relations between China and Australia showed signs of thawing. In January 2023, China lifted its informal import ban on Australian coal, and seven months later lifted its import tariffs on Australian barley. In October last year, China released Australian journalist Cheng Lei, who had been imprisoned for more than three years on suspicion of leaking state secrets.
Albanese flew to Beijing in November and said he raised Yang Hengjun’s case with Chinese leader Xi Jinping during his visit to China. Albanese did not say what response he received at the time.
2024-02-06 01:30:00
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