As of: February 5, 2024, 3:02 p.m
By: Sven Hauberg
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The writer Yang Jun and his wife.
© Chongyi Feng/AP/dpa
A Chinese court has sentenced Australian writer Yang Jun to death.
The decision could derail recent efforts for rapprochement between China and Australia.
A court in China has apparently sentenced Australian writer Yang Jun to death.
The government in Canberra announced this on Monday.
There was initially no confirmation from the Chinese authorities.
Yang's death sentence was therefore suspended.
“As far as we know, this sentence can be commuted to life imprisonment after two years if the person concerned does not commit any serious criminal offenses during the two years,” said the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs, which said in a statement that it was “horrified” by the “shocking Message” from China.
Yang Jun is a native of China and received Australian citizenship in 2002.
He worked primarily in New York and was arrested in 2019 while in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou.
Chinese authorities accuse him of spying for another country;
Details of the charges are not known.
Yang has denied the allegations against him.
A China-based human rights lawyer told Reuters that Yang had been found guilty "on all counts."
The 59-year-old Yang is apparently seriously ill; a cyst was discovered in his kidney last year.
In addition, he had suffered greatly from his five years in prison, as his supporters said.
Writer sentenced to death: success with spy novels
The writer became known, among other things, for his spy novels about a double agent who also goes by the surname Yang.
He also wrote blogs critical of China's ruling Communist Party, but also of US politics.
According to a report by the Reuters news agency from October 2020, Yang actually worked as a spy at times - albeit on behalf of the Chinese government.
Yang is said to have made this public himself in 2011.
Accordingly, he worked for China's Ministry of State Security for ten years starting in 1989, including in Hong Kong and Washington.
“The Australian Government has stood up for Dr. China at every opportunity and at the highest levels.
Yang deployed,” it said on Monday from Canberra.
“We have always maintained basic standards of justice, due process and humane treatment of Dr.
Yang demanded in line with international norms and China’s legal obligations.”
Relations between China and Australia have been difficult for years
The death sentence for Yang is likely to significantly worsen relations between Beijing and Canberra.
After years of diplomatic ice age, China and Australia recently approached each other again. In November, Australia's Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was received in Beijing by China's head of state Xi Jinping for the first high-level talks between the two countries since 2016.
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The relationship was strained for years after the Australian government called for an investigation into the origins of the coronavirus in 2020.
The virus first appeared in the Chinese city of Wuhan at the end of 2019.
Beijing responded to Australia's move with punitive measures.
Among other things, China imposed punitive tariffs on the import of Australian beef.
The relationship was also strained by the imprisonment of Australian journalist Cheng Lei in China in 2020.
Cheng, who worked for Chinese state television, was released late last year.
She was accused of passing state secrets abroad.
Under President Xi, China has made so-called “national security” a top priority.
Only at the beginning of the year did Beijing arrest a suspected MI6 agent for alleged espionage.