Australia Outraged as Writer Yang Hengjun Sentenced to Death in China

Chinese-Australian writer Yang Hengjun, also known as Yang Jun, has been sentenced to death by a Chinese court on espionage charges. Born in China in 1965 and an Australian citizen since the early 2000s, Yang was detained in 2019 and underwent a closed-doors trial in 2021. Australia has summoned the Chinese ambassador in Canberra to express its outrage over the sentence. Human Rights Watch's Asia director, Elaine Pearson, has criticized the sentence as 'outrageous'. Despite the mounting tensions over this and other issues including human rights abuses and territorial claims in the South China Sea, Yang is unable to return to Australia.