Dr Yang Hengjun, Sino-Australian relations and human rights

Chinese-born Australian academic Yang Hengjun was handed a suspended death sentence by a Chinese court in early February 2024, drawing vocal protests from Australia and threatening to de-rail the gradual renewal of Sino-Australian relations in recent years.

Yang was born in China and worked for China’s notoriously opaque Ministry of State Security before moving to Australia in the 1990s, undertaking a PhD in Chinese studies and becoming a frequent blogger, advocating fordemocracy in China. Crucially, on a trip to Guangzhou in 2019 the academic was detained on the grounds of ‘espionage’. Dr Yang’s trial was held in secret, with Zhao Lijian, a spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, claiming that ‘as state secrets are involved, the trial is not held in public or attended by spectators according to law’. Graham Fletcher, Australia’s ambassador to China, was denied access to the trial and accused of ‘gross interference’ by Chinese officials despite Dr Yang’s Australian citizenship.

 Yang Hengjun’s sentencing has further highlighted concerns that Chinese-born Australian citizens face an increased risk when visiting mainland China. Yang’s case follows journalist Cheng Lei’s three year detention in China on charges of espionage before being released in October 2023, highlighting the unique dangers posed to Chinese-Australians visiting China.  Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade advises that Australian travelers to China exercise a ‘high degree of caution’ owing to China’s broadly defined national security legislation, yet makes no specific reference to Chinese-born Australians’ risk. 

 This is an important distinction, given that China doesn’t recognise dual-nationality for any Chinese national, as per Article 3 of China’s Nationality Law, there exists an amplified risk that Australians with Chinese heritage could be denied consular access on account of Chinese officials deeming them solely by virtue of their Chinese citizenship. A Hong Kong-born Australian, arrested in 2021, underscores this danger. The man accused of ‘conspiring to subvert state power’ was denied consular access given that he was deemed as a ‘Chinese National’ under Chinese nationality law. This is a worrying long-term development given that Australia has one of the largest Chinese diasporas in the world, with the 2016 census finding that 509,555 Australians were born in China. Moreover, given that China remains Australia’s largest trading partner, there exists a risk that business people traveling to and from mainland China could face increased risk under China’s loosely defined national security rules.

Penny Wong, Australia’s foreign minister raised immediate protests with the sentencing of Dr Yang, stating that the Australian government was ‘appalled’ at the outcome of the trial and promised to continue to advocate for the academic, yet Amnesty International and Yang’s sons have cautioned that Yang Hengjun’s ill-health has imbued the case with added urgency given fears that he may die whilst in detention. Moreover, Human Rights Watch Australia called for stronger action, including Canberra’s leadership in forming a ‘coalition’ of states aimed at lobbying China for the rights of individuals arbitrarily detained in the country.

Yet, at the press conference held in response to Yang Hengjun’s sentence, Penny Wong cautioned against the case undermining broader Sino-Australian relations, claiming that the ‘stabilisation’ of relations means that Australia will ‘cooperate where we can’ and ‘disagree where we must’ with Beijing. Whilst Wong voiced Australia’s disagreement with Dr Yang’s sentence, she recognised that the ruling was a  ‘decision within China’s legal system’ and thus inferred that Canberra must have a degree of distance in the extent to which it could challenge the ruling. This lukewarm response to calls for a stronger Australian rebuke underscores the attempts of Australia’s government, under Labor Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, to resurrect Sino-Australian relations following a sharp deterioration under the ‘Coalition’ (the name given to the alliance of Centre-Right parties in Australia) governments led by Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison in their hawkish approach to China.

Labor sought to ‘stabilise’ Sino-Australian relations upon taking government, rebuilding from the nadir in the relationship that arose following Australia’s call for an independent inquiry into the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic. Australia has a long and nuanced history with China, a racist ‘White Australia policy’  at the turn of the 20th century explicitly forbid Chinese migration to Australia amidst fears of an ‘invasion’ with the policy only abolished in the 1970s. Then under the Labor governments of Gough Whitlam, Bob Hawke and Paul Keating sought to embrace Australia’s opportunity as a growing middle power to place Australia as a central component in the strategy and structure of a coming Asian century, with a rapidly developing China as central to the region and Australia’s place in it. Bob Hawke saw China as the ‘great cause’ for Canberra, arguing that Australia could play a key role in working with China as it ‘opened up’ in the 1970s and 1980s whilst also emboldening Australia’s economy with exports in key materials such as iron ore to an insatiable Chinese economy. However, the Tiananmen massacre of June 1989 served as a ‘loss of innocence’ in Australian foreign policy, overnight dampening hopes for a liberal, economically and politically, China in Asia and instilling a culture of concern in Canberra on the influence of a rising China.

Indeed increasingly a ‘fear’ of China came to define Sino-Australian relations, as numerous Australian administrations took progressively stern positions on China culminating with Liberal Prime Minister Scott Morrison resurrecting the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue defensive grouping between Australia, India, Japan and the United States, seen in Beijing as a plan to constrain Chinese growth, and eventually signing the ‘Aukus’ security pact with the United Kingdom and the United States. Such moves have drawn the ire of Beijing, accusing Australia as working to ‘contain’ China, with China punishing Canberra with a set of import tariffs levied on Australian exports. Thus, hopes were raised when Anthony Albanese’s Labor government came to power, with a renaissance in Sino-Australian relations reaching a peak with the Australian Prime Minister meeting Chinese President Xi Jinping in November 2023 in Beijing. The Labor government has on the whole seemed to maintain its historic record of undertaking a nuanced approach to China and its role in Asia, seeking to collaborate with Beijing where possible cognisant of the shared challenges both countries face in light of tackling climate change and protecting multilateralism in the region amidst US protectionism and withdrawal. China’s recognition of the power of a ‘community with a shared future’ approach between Canberra and Beijing further highlights the initial success of Albanese’s resurrection of relations.

 Therefore, the detention and sentencing of Dr Yang provides a crucial litmus test for Labor’s approach and for the revival of Sino-Australian relations. As Foreign Minister Wong’s cautionary conference implies, it appears that Albanese’s government will seek to steer clear of the occasionally bullish tone of his predecessors on human rights in China, yet the extent to which this will draw domestic criticism remains to be seen. More than anything, the sentencing sends a strong warning to Chinese diasporas around the world and the extent to which Chinese repression within China’s borders is becoming increasingly diffuse.