Explained: China’s ‘suspended’ death sentence to Australian citizen, its likely impact on ties

First, who is Yang Hengjun?

The Australian government has raised Yang’s case for two years. His exact identity and the nature of his political views, however, are unclear.

“Mr. Yang described himself as a former employee of the Chinese foreign ministry, and also wrote a trilogy of novels about China’s espionage apparatus. He had been critical of human rights abuses under the Chinese government, but became more cautious in his public comments in the years before his detention, when dissent in China came under tighter control,” The New York Times said.

However, China’s Foreign Affairs Ministry spokeswoman had earlier told Reuters that Yang had never been employed in the Foreign Ministry. Those associated with Yang also said he claimed to base the spy novels’ stories on his own experiences.

He migrated to Australia in 2002 and began writing blogs which spoke of the need for democracy. In 2019, he travelled from New York to Guangzhou in China with his wife and stepdaughter. He was tried behind closed doors in May 2021, even as he denied charges of spying for a foreign country.

According to Australia’s ABC News, in 2019 he had around 310,000 followers on the Chinese social media platform Weibo and 131,000 followers on X.

But other details of his life are unclear. “While Dr Yang describes himself as a Chinese ‘nationalist supporting democracy’ in his book titled Family, Country and the World published in 2011, his detractors say he has been flaunting his connections with high-level (Chinese) political leaders on his blog for years,” ABC News reported.

Are such charges or detention unique?

In October 2023, China-born Australian journalist Cheng Lei, who had been detained in China on suspicion of illegally supplying state secrets overseas for more than three years, was released.

Her arrest in 2020 came at a time of a low in China-Australia ties. In April 2020, Australia sought support for an international inquiry into the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic. In response, the Chinese ambassador said its public would boycott Australian wine, beef and tourism – some of the key exports from Australia.

The countries have had longstanding ties based on trade and immigration. Government statistics say that the Chinese-born population is the third largest migrant community in Australia, after the United Kingdom and India.

But in the mid-2010s, a range of issues came up. In 2018, Australia banned Chinese tech company Huawei Technologies Co Ltd from supplying equipment for its planned 5G broadband network, citing national security regulations. The United States has also done the same. Two years later, China said it would impose temporary anti-dumping tariffs on Australian wine, Reuters reported.

However, there seemed a potential for change in 2022, with elections in Australia. The Labor Party’s Anthony Albanese won, ending a decade of conservative rule. He met Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of G20 in Indonesia – the first leaders’ meeting since 2016.

Since then, China has ended 80.5% tariffs on Australian barley and released journalist Cheng Lei. In November 2023, Albanese told Xi that a strong relationship between the two countries was “beneficial into the future”. Xi also reciprocated by saying that stable bilateral ties served mutual interests.

But another issue flared up in January 2024, when Albanese rejected comments by China’s ambassador on an incident from November 2023 – the same month in which Albanese visited China. The Chinese navy was alleged to have caused injury to Australian military divers near Japan. It sought to deflect the blame, which Albanese spoke against.

Espionage charges earlier too

With Canada too, tensions over trade and security in the ties have seen espionage charges from China come into the mix. In May 2023, both countries expelled each other’s diplomats, after Canada claimed China was targeting its Chinese-origin citizens for criticising the communist party. It also alleged that China was attempting to influence Canadian local elections.

China, on the other hand, rejected the charges and expelled the Canadian consul in Shanghai “as a reciprocal countermeasure in reaction to Canada’s unscrupulous move”.

In 2018, Canadian authorities arrested Meng Wanzhou, an executive of the Chinese tech company Huawei, and the daughter of Huawei founder Ren Zhenfei. This was at the request of US authorities, who accused the company of misleading it on its transactions with Iran – which was under US trade sanctions.

But the arrest predictably caused a strong reaction from China, even as Canada said it was simply following obligations under its extradition treaty with the US. Within two weeks, China arrested two Canadians, businessman Michael Spavor and former diplomat Michael Kovrig, on allegations of spying. Canada termed this “absolutely unacceptable”.

Certain trade restrictions on Canadian goods also followed from China’s end, but they were removed in 2021. The same year, Huawei’s Meng was allowed to leave Canada following a deal between the two countries and the US, and soon after, Spavor and Kovrig were also released in China.