Editor’s note for Friday, May 21, 2021
A note from the editor of today’s The China Project Access newsletter
My thoughts today:
Our top story today is about the trial next week on espionage charges of Yáng Héngjūn 杨恒均, a Chinese writer who became an Australian citizen but has been behind bars in China for more than two years.
Here is a video interview with Yang I produced in 2008. It was part of a series filmed at the China Blogger Conference that year. I also produced a video of interviews at the 2009 China Blogger Conference, which was the final year that event took place. Its demise was an early signal of the direction China was taking when it came to free expression on the internet.
It remains unclear why Yang has been targeted. But several people at the China Blogger Conferences have been silenced, detained, or exiled since those halcyon days more than a decade ago. The Chinese government does not like gadflies. And if Yang can give some leverage over Canberra, that’s an added bonus for Beijing.
Our word of the day is Yang Hengjun case sentencing behind closed doors on May 27 (杨恒均案5月27日闭门宣判 Yáng Héngjūn àn wǔ yuè èrshíqī rì bìmén xuānpàn), the headline of an RFA Chinese report.
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—Jeremy Goldkorn, Editor-in-Chief
