Australia Probes China’s Detention of Australian-Chinese Writer

Yang Hengjun is detained in China after Canberra’s decision to ban Huawei from Australia’s 5G network
By Eva Dou in Beijing, Rob Taylor in Canberra and Yifan Wang in Hong Kong

The Australian-Chinese writer Yang Hengjun disappeared ahead of a visit to China by Australia’s defense minister. 

Australia’s government is investigating the detention of an Australian-Chinese political writer and academic in China amid heightened concern over detentions of Western nationals in the country.
Australia’s foreign ministry said it was seeking access to Yang Hengjun, an Australian spy novelist who once worked for China’s Foreign Ministry, and that no reasons had been provided by security or diplomatic authorities in Beijing for his detention.
Mr. Yang’s case threatens to cast a shadow over a visit to China by Australia’s defense minister. 

It follows months of tension between Australia and Beijing over Canberra’s decision to lock Chinese phone giant Huawei Technologies Co. out of future 5G communication networks and to challenge Chinese influence in the South Pacific.
His detention also comes as China enters a year of sensitive political anniversaries, including the 30th anniversary of pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square. 

Several labor organizers and student activists in multiple cities either have disappeared or been taken into police custody in recent days, in what some observers described as a sign authorities are on edge.
There were no immediate indications of whether Mr. Yang’s case was linked to those broader issues. Mr. Yang has been detained previously on trips to China, including in 2011, when a friend reported that Chinese authorities told him he could be released only if he agreed to say he had been sick for the preceding few days.
Australia’s defense minister, Christopher Pyne, was due to arrive in China Thursday in an effort to soothe recent tensions evident since Australia’s conservative government targeted foreign influence in domestic politics and society with counterespionage legislation, triggering a chill in trade and diplomatic relations.
Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said in a statement Wednesday that it wanted to know why Mr. Yang had been detained and was seeking “to obtain consular access to him, in accordance with the bilateral consular agreement, as a matter of priority.”
Asked about Mr. Yang’s case at a regular China Foreign Ministry news conference, spokeswoman Hua Chunying said she wasn’t aware of the situation.
Mr. Yang had flown from New York to Guangzhou on Jan. 18, but he didn’t continue onto a second flight to Shanghai, according to the Sydney Morning Herald, citing friends. 

It wasn’t immediately clear what the purpose of his trip was.
There has been concern about the risks for Western nationals in China in recent weeks after China detained Canadian researcher Michael Kovrig and businessman Michael Spavor, in apparent retaliation for Ottawa’s arrest of Huawei’s finance chief at the U.S.’s request. 

Canada issued a travel alert this month, warning of the possibility of “arbitrary enforcement” of local laws in China.
More than 100 scholars and former diplomats from Western countries signed an open letter to Xi Jinping this week calling for the release of Messrs. Kovrig and Spavor, saying it would make China experts think twice about visiting the country. 

While Australia’s government has been cautious with its criticism to protect trade ties, several Australians signed, including Gareth Evans, a former Australian foreign minister and president emeritus of Mr. Kovrig’s employer, the International Crisis Group.
China has accused the two Canadians of activities that endanger national security, without specifying what those activities are. 

They haven’t been formally charged.
On Jan. 16, Mr. Yang posted a comment on his Weibo social-media account criticizing a travel warning China issued for Canada, warning Chinese citizens to be careful of their safety and follow local laws. 

“Canada is pretty much one of the top three countries that treat tourists the best,” he wrote.
Mr. Yang, who was born in China, joined China’s Foreign Ministry in the 1980s, and at one point he posted a photo of himself online in a police uniform. 

He later switched to academic work and moved abroad.
It has been unclear what happened during his previous disappearances in China. 

When he emerged in 2011, he only said he had fallen ill and had communication issues, leading to what he called a misunderstanding.
Feng Chongyi, a friend and a Sydney-based academic who was himself detained in China last year, expressed concern that Mr. Yang had been detained on national-security grounds.
“It is an extension of China’s hostage-diplomacy issue,” Mr. Feng said. 

He said he had tried to warn Mr. Yang against travel to China following the detention of the two Canadians.
In a sign that Chinese residents critical of government policy also face heightened risks, police from the southern city of Shenzhen took six labor activists into custody on Sunday night, according to friends and family members. 

Three of the activists were formally detained on suspicion of “disturbing social order,” while another has since been released, they said.
Separately, five current students and two recent graduates from top universities in Beijing who belong to a group that supported worker-unionizing efforts in southern China last year disappeared on Monday, according to friends. 

The seven were hiding out in an apartment in the coastal city of Tianjin while the group released statements excoriating Beijing police for having shown several of them videotaped confessions by fellow activists detained last year, friends said.
One of the people detained, Peking University student Zhang Ziwei, described others being grabbed by unidentified people in messages he sent to friends by smartphone late Monday night. 

In a video message, viewed by The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Zhang said he could hear the people going to door-to-door.
“The proletariat doesn’t fear death, much less repression!” he said in the video. 

Friends said he later stopped sending messages and they haven’t been able to reach him since.
The Shenzhen Public Security Bureau didn’t respond to a request for comment.