Australian prime minister speaks of Beijing prisoner’s courage, resilience and hope

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MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Thursday spoke of the courage, resilience and hope of Australian citizen Yang Hengjun, who was convicted last year in China of espionage.

The plight of the 59-year-old Chinese-born democracy blogger, who was arrested on arrival in China on a flight from New York in 2019, remains an impediment to an improving bilateral relationship between Canberra and Beijing.

Albanese said Yang had recently written to him from a Beijing prison.

“It was a message of profound courage and resilience and hope despite his difficult circumstances,” Albanese told reporters in Jakarta, where he was making his first overseas visit since his government was reelected on May 3.

“We continue to advocate for Dr. Yang’s interests and wellbeing at every opportunity and I have certainly asked our ambassador to convey that very directly to Dr. Yang,” Albanese added.

Yang was found guilty of espionage following a closed court trial in February last year and sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve. Such sentences are often commuted to life in prison after the two years.

Albanese has raised Yang’s detention in meetings with China’s leaders since the prime minister’s center-left Labor Party was first elected in 2022.

Since that election, Beijing has lifted a ban on minister-to-minister communications with Australia and removed a series of official and unofficial trade barriers that had cost Australian exporters up to 20 billion Australian dollars ($13 billion) a year.

In Yang’s letter to Albanese, a copy of which was provided to The Associated Press on Thursday by a supporter of the prisoner, he wrote that the support of the government and Australian Embassy staff had “helped me to bear what has been untold and unbearable suffering.”

“I feel all of your support beside me as I stagger through the hardest and darkest chapter of my life, allowing me to immerse in the warmth of humanity,” Yang wrote.

“I deeply love Australia,” Yang wrote. “I ardently love China.”

Yang expected he would one day sit side by side with his readers “sharing laughter, tears and dreams.”

“Dear Prime Minister Albanese, words are now failing me. Tears blur my vision. I can only use a silent voice to thank you and all the people who care for and love me,” Yang wrote.