China-born writer gets death penalty for spying
Chinese court’s verdict seen as setting back Beijing-Canberra relations
BEIJING: Chinese-Australian dissident writer Yang Jun has been handed a suspended death sentence for espionage in China, Beijing and Canberra said on Monday, five years after he was arrested in his homeland.
The Chinese-born Australian citizen has been in jail in China since 2019 on spying allegations and is said to be in ill health.
China’s Foreign Ministry said the writer, who gained a huge following in exile for his spy novels and calls for greater freedom in his homeland, was sentenced by a court in the capital Beijing on Monday “in an espionage case in accordance with the law.”
“It found that Yang Jun was guilty of espionage, sentenced him to death with a two-year suspended execution, and confiscated all his personal property,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said.
Yang, who denies the spying claims, was arrested on a rare trip back to China five years ago.
The writer — who also goes by his pen name Yang Hengjun — has told supporters he was tortured at a secret detention site and feared the forced confessions may be used against him.
“The Australian government is appalled at this outcome,” Foreign Minister Penny Wong told a news conference.
Canberra understood that the death sentence could be commuted to life in jail after a period of two years, she said.
“We will be communicating our response in the strongest terms,” she added, telling reporters that the sentence was “the most harrowing news.”
“I want to acknowledge the acute distress that Dr. Yang and his family will be feeling today, coming after years of uncertainty,” Wong said.
Yang’s verdict and sentence had been repeatedly delayed since his closed-door trial on national security charges in May 2021, the minister said.
Australia had consistently called for “basic standards of justice, procedural fairness and humane treatment,” she added.
“Australia will not relent in [advocating] for justice for Dr. Yang’s interests and wellbeing, including appropriate medical treatment,” the minister said.
The suspended death sentence will be seen as a setback in Australia-China relations, which had appeared to be warming.
Australian journalist Cheng Lei was released in October after more than three years’ detention on espionage charges widely seen as politically motivated.
Yang’s friends said last year he feared he would die in jail without proper medical treatment because of a cyst growing in his kidney.
“If something happens with my health and I die in here, people outside won’t know the truth,” he said in a note shared with friends and supporters. “If something happens to me, who can speak for me?”
Tensions between Canberra and Beijing mounted in 2018 when Australia excluded the Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. from its Fifth Generation network.
Two years later, Australia called for an international investigation into the origins of the coronavirus — an action China saw as politically motivated.
In response, Beijing slapped high tariffs on key Australian exports, including barley, beef and wine, while halting its coal imports.
Most of those tariffs have been lifted under the current center-left government of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who made a breakthrough trip to Beijing in November, hailing progress as “unquestionably very positive.”
Tensions remain, however, when it comes to security, as Australia draws closer to the United States in an effort to blunt China’s expanding influence in the South Pacific region.