[ad_1]
SYDNEY: Yang Hengjun, an Australian writer detained in Beijing and facing trial for espionage on behalf of a country China has not publicly mentioned, was a former Chinese spy, according to a confidential letter he wrote to a supporter in 2011.
In the detailed letter he wrote to his former teacher, which was reviewed by Reuters, Yang revealed that he had worked for China’s Ministry of State Security for a decade since 1989, including in Hong Kong and Washington, before moving to Australia. .
The 55-year-old, who became a well-known pro-democracy blogger, faces 10 years or more in jail after Chinese authorities accused him of endangering national security by joining or accepting a mission from the organization. of unidentified espionage, said Feng Chongyi. the Sydney-based liberal scholar to whom Yang sent the letter.
Yang has previously proclaimed his innocence, saying last month, “I will never confess to something I have not done.”
Feng revealed the letter’s details about Yang’s past as a Chinese spy for the first time, which had been rumored in overseas Chinese dissident circles, as a pre-emptive move to counter possible misinformation in Yang’s trial for spying for another country.
READ: Australian writer charged with espionage in Beijing, says China
LEE: Australia is ‘deeply concerned’ as the writer faces a trial for espionage in China
Reuters was unable to independently verify Yang’s claim that he was spying for China and some other details in his letter.
China’s Foreign Ministry referred Reuters to a statement it made on October 12, when a spokesperson confirmed that Yang had been charged with espionage on October 7 and that the first hearing in the case was underway.
“The relevant Chinese authorities are handling the case in strict accordance with the law, and Yang Jun’s legal rights are fully protected,” spokesman Zhao Lijian said at the time, referring to Yang’s legal name.
The Australian government referred Reuters to Foreign Minister Marise Payne’s statement last week that Australia had seen no evidence to support the espionage charge against Yang.
The Chinese authorities have prohibited Yang’s lawyers in Beijing from speaking about the trial to the media.
The case underscores what Yang supporters describe as an offensive against liberal voices in China since 2016 under President Xi Jinping and comes at a time when diplomatic relations between Australia and China are already at a low point.
HONG KONG, WASHINGTON
Yang built a huge following online more than a decade ago after writing hundreds of articles on Chinese, American and Taiwanese politics.
He was first arrested in China in 2011 by police on suspicion of being an instigator of the Beijing Jasmine Revolution, short-lived protests fueled by online democracy activists. He was released three days after the Australian government’s interventions.
In his May 2011 letter to Feng, Yang denied being behind the protests and said he told police that he worked for the MSS after 1989.
According to his letter, Yang worked for MSS in Hong Kong from 1992 until the city’s handover from Great Britain to China in 1997, and then in Washington.
Yang’s cover in Hong Kong was on a travel service, while in Washington he worked as an investigator for a think tank, Feng said, although the letter did not refer to these activities.
China’s Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a new request for comment on Yang’s work for MSS in Hong Kong and Washington.
Yang asked the Guangzhou police questioning him in 2011 to contact the MSS to confirm his identity, but he also told them that he did not need permission to write publicly about Chinese democracy because he had left the security agency years before.
“I have changed my mind and discovered a better form of patriotism. It is to promote social progress and reform of China’s political system to achieve democratic modernization, not just be a spy,” he told them, according to the letter.
LEE: The detained Australian Yang Hengjun will be tried in China
A person who answered the phone at the Guangzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau on Wednesday said they had no knowledge of the case and that the bureau did not immediately respond to a faxed request to confirm Yang’s arrest and questioning in 2011.
Yang had left MSS when he emigrated to Australia in 1999 to follow his family, and became an Australian citizen in 2002, said Feng, who supervised Yang’s doctoral studies at the Sydney University of Technology in 2006.
SPY STORIES
Yang spent the next four years writing spy novels.
All three novels, published in Taiwan, are about a double agent, also surnamed Yang. In his 2004 novel, Finishing Stroke, the CIA director, the president of the United States, and the president of Taiwan are embroiled in a plot about tensions in the Taiwan Strait.
During his arrest in 2011, the police had demanded to know how Yang could write the novels without divulging state secrets, according to Yang’s written account.
“I know the boundary between love of the country and betrayal,” he replied, according to the 13-page letter.
In addition to the letter, another source confirmed that he told close friends about his MSS history after his arrest in 2011.
After his three-day detention in 2011, he was detained again by police who entered China from New York in January 2019.
READ: Australia faces China in high-risk strategy
READ: Latest Australian cotton product will be China’s ‘target’
DEMOCRACY DEMOCRACY
Feng said that he believed Yang’s arrest was related to a crackdown by the national police against “foreign interference” reported by state media that same month.
“In 2019, he was suspected of being a person with the potential to organize the Color Revolution,” Feng said, referring to pro-democracy protest movements sometimes linked by critics to the interests of the United States or the West. without providing further details.
China’s Foreign Ministry did not respond to requests for comment on the details of Yang’s arrest.
Yang lived in New York in 2019 as a visiting scholar at Columbia University and supplemented his income by working as a “daigou” or online shopping agent for Chinese consumers who wanted American products.
“Yang Hengjun is being punished for his posts criticizing human rights abuses and other malpractices by the (Chinese Communist Party) in China, and for promoting China’s transition towards the introduction of democracy,” said Feng, who was detained by the security police in Guangzhou in 2017..
Yuan Xiaoliang, wife of Australian writer Yang Hengjun, speaks to Reuters in Shanghai, China on October 19, 2020. P REUTERS / Stringer
AUSTRALIAN CONCERNS
The Australian government has expressed serious concerns about Yang’s treatment during the 21 months he was detained, saying that last year he had been chained, interrogated for prolonged periods, with limited access to lawyers and unable to see his wife. You are only allowed to convey a message to your husband through consular officials on a limited range of topics.
Yang’s wife, Yuan Xiaoliang, who spoke to Reuters in Shanghai about their relationship but not about Yang’s case or his past with MSS, said Yang would not betray his family or his readers in China.
She also expressed concern for her husband’s health, noting that he had lost weight and was told by Australian consular officers who visited him last year that they observed that he was shaking while walking while in detention.
“I once hoped they would let him go. But now it seems impossible,” said Yuan, who was granted a permanent resident visa by Australia but is prevented from leaving China by authorities. “I am worried that he may not survive.”
