Key Points
- Jailed Australian writer Yang Hengjun's health has worsened in Chinese detention, his sons say.
- Anthony Albanese is being urged to secure Yang Hengjun's release during his visit to Beijing.
- Yang Hengjun was arrested in August 2019 on suspicion of espionage.
The children of an Australian writer detained in China are pleading with Anthony Albanese to help bring their father home as the prime minister visits Beijing.
Yang Hengjun's children say their father's health has "declined" in Chinese detention.
Yang was arrested in August 2019 on suspicion of espionage and has .
For the first time since the academic was detained, a letter he wrote for his two sons in Australia was delivered to them last week after he received a consular visit by an Australian official.
They have requested their identities remain publicly hidden.
Albanese will travel to Beijing next week where he will meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping, in a sign of thawing relations between the two nations.
In a letter to the prime minister, Yang's two sons urge Albanese to act and use this "narrow window of opportunity" to help secure their father's release.
"We request that you do all in your power to save our father's life and return him immediately to family and freedom in Australia," they wrote.
"We ask that you make clear that it is not possible to stabilise the bilateral relationship with a government that is holding an Australian citizen just a few kilometres south of where you will be hosted."
Yang Hengjun's medical condition worsens
In August, Yang was told by medical authorities they had discovered a massive 10cm cyst on his kidney.
Fearing for their father's life, his children at the time urged the government to demand the pro-democracy writer be given medical parole or access to Australian-supervised care outside of his detention centre.
A consular report written last Wednesday said Yang's "physical condition had declined", and that he looked pale and had lost weight.
It said Yang had reported a new doctor had prescribed him three vitamin pills and added an egg to his daily diet as treatment.
His sons wrote two elements of Yang's imprisonment were "particularly cruel".
These included his enforced confinement for a man "full of life and energy and completely incapable of sitting still" and being deprived of his love of reading and writing.
Yang's correspondence with his children
In a letter written to his sons dated 21 September, Yang titled it with an answer on how to live well: "Read good books, follow the right path, be a good person."
The opening of the letter from Yang explains to his children that he chose to migrate to Australia because he wanted them to be born and raised in the "most beautiful country in the world, where the rule of law is strong and human rights are guaranteed".
Yang wrote he had been denied direct sunlight for more than four years apart from some rays that occasionally came through the panes of glass.
His children wrote their father was in jail because he represented truth, democracy and the rational exchange of ideas.
They say Yang had been subjected to more than 300 interrogations over 18 months, including six months of intense torture.
The writer was deprived of sleep and had his wrists and ankles strapped to a chair for days at a time until he couldn't walk.
Yang's children say Albanese's efforts to free sent a message to Australia's Chinese community that the nation upheld its citizens' rights regardless of their ethnicity.
They wrote, in closing his letter, their father urged his sons not to worry about him.
"My readers, the public and the Australian government are paying attention to my case. I just hope I will be able to get out, alive," Yang wrote.
