The children of jailed Australian writer Yang Hengjun, detained for more than four years in China, have pleaded with Anthony Albanese to negotiate his release in Beijing this week, telling the prime minister his situation is critical and their father risks “being left to die”.
The writer and avowed democracy activist was arrested in January 2019 and charged with espionage. Yang has collapsed in prison and been told he has a 10cm cyst growing on his kidney, his sons said in a letter to Albanese, emphasising there was “a narrow window of opportunity” to secure his release.
“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,” they wrote.
“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.”
The prime minister leaves for China on Saturday for an official visit, including a meeting with president Xi Jinping. Sources familiar with the diplomatic relationship argue Australia’s diplomatic leverage to secure Yang’s release will dissipate with the end of the three-day visit.
Less than a week ago, Yang’s two sons were allowed to receive their first letter from their father since he was detained. Yang wrote to them that he lacks even the freedoms of an ordinary Chinese prison cell:
In a prison, inmates are allowed to go outside to get fresh air and may eat in the canteen. Unlike the detention centre where I eat, drink, defecate and urinate all in a small room.
I haven’t enjoyed any direct sunlight for over four years. At most, some rays of sunlight occasionally come through one or two panes of glass and flicker fitfully.
Yang wrote to his children:
Don’t forget I have not been convicted yet. According to Chinese law, I am still innocent, yet I have been locked up for more than four years, and I am almost destroyed … I’m talking about physically; mentally, no-one can destroy me.
I just hope I will be able to get out alive.
His sons told the prime minister they know their father has done nothing wrong. Their father, they wrote, “has been subjected to more than 300 interrogations over 18 months, including six months of intense torture while in RSDL (Residential Surveillance at a Designated Location)”.
“They deprived him of sleep, strapped his wrists and ankles and pinned him to a chair for days at a time, until he couldn’t walk.”
But, they wrote, “still there has been no confession”.
“Our father has too many hundreds of friends, too many millions of readers and followers, too much magnetic energy and charisma. He is in jail because he represents truth, democracy, respectful exchange of rational ideas.”
Last month, in a significant diplomatic victory for the Albanese government, Chinese-born Australian journalist Cheng Lei was freed from detention in China and returned home to her family in Melbourne. Chinese authorities said she had been released and deported “in accordance with the law after serving her sentence” of two years and 11 months.
Sources say Cheng’s case was a simpler one, with her perceived offence against the Chinese state far more minor and technical: she is reported to have breached a reporting embargo by a matter of minutes. The emotional argument of a mother separated from her young children – Cheng’s partner Nick Coyle forcefully prosecuted the argument publicly – was also seen as powerful moral suasion for leniency.
Yang’s status as a former Ministry of State Security officer and avowed campaigner for democracy has made his case more difficult, although consular officials have consistently emphasised concerns about Yang’s health.
Yang, whose legal name is Yang Jun, was born in Hubei in central China. He was a diplomat for China’s ministry of foreign affairs, and an agent for the secretive ministry of state security. He then worked in the private sector in Hong Kong before moving to Australia, then to the US, where he was a visiting scholar at Columbia University.
A writer of spy novels, he has been a popular blogger, political commentator and agitator for democratic reforms in China for more than a decade. He describes himself as a “democracy peddler”.
Yang, who became an Australian citizen in 2002, flew into Guangzhou with his family in January 2019. His wife and child were able to enter China, but authorities escorted Yang from the plane into detention.
He was initially held under a system known as “residential surveillance at a designated location”, a type of secret detention of up to six months in which authorities can deny a suspect access to lawyers and to family, and restrict external communication. Yang was moved to a Beijing detention centre in the lead-up to being formally charged.
His trial was held in May 2021 but he has still not received a verdict, with the Beijing high court granting multiple three-month extensions on the deadline for handing down a decision.
Yang’s PhD supervisor in Australia, associate professor Chongyi Feng, told the Guardian Cheng’s case was different to Yang’s.
“In the eyes of the Chinese authorities, Cheng Lei is not a dissident, Yang Hengjun is a political dissident and opinion leader. So they have more reasons to keep Yang in prison.”
He said Yang’s case had reached a critical point.
“If prime minister Albanese fails to get Yang back to Australia, there is a real possibility that he will die in prison.”
In their letter to the prime minister, Yang’s sons urged him to act now.
“We ask that you make it 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.”
