Detained Australian professor credits media pressure for release

Chinese officials allowed Australian professor Feng Chongyi to return home to Sydney on Sunday after barring him from leaving the country for more than a week.

“The authorities yielded to international pressure—including yours, the media,” Feng told The New York Times 20 minutes after his plane landed in Australia.

A professor at the University of Technology Sydney, Feng often criticized China’s growing influence in Australia’s Chinese community through Chinese-language media. Feng was born in China but has permanent residency in Australia. His wife and daughter are Australian citizens. He returned to China on a Chinese visa for a three-week trip to research the crackdown on human rights lawyers and activists. Chinese authorities stopped Feng as he tried to board his flight home March 24.

When Kevin Carrico, a Chinese studies professor at Macquarie University in Sydney, heard of Feng’s confinement, he wrote an open letter demanding Feng’s release. More than 150 Chinese studies professors around the world signed it. Carrico noted Feng’s confinement bode ill for other scholars who need to do research in China—although the threat is larger for those considered Chinese citizens living overseas.

“Forty years into [China’s] reform process, this is not what we hoped would be happening,” Carrico said. “It’s quite troubling.”

Feng spoke out last year when the International Cultural Exchange Association Australia planned a concert series in Sydney and Melbourne glorifying Chairman Mao Zedong on the 40th anniversary of his death. The cities cancelled the performances due to public safety concerns after many in the Chinese community planned demonstrations against the events. Feng also often criticized China’s influence on the Chinese-language media in Australia, where many newspapers are owned by pro-Chinese groups and only publish news supporting the Communist Party line.

In an interview with the Sydney Morning Post in July, Feng recalled how he founded an alternative Chinese-language newspaper, Sydney Times, in 2006 but faced pressure from Chinese officials. Chinese-owned businesses threatened to pull advertisements if stories criticized the government, and the Chinese consulate threatened to restrict his ability to visit the mainland for research. His newspaper quickly folded due to a lack of advertisers.

Chinese officials never explained why they held Feng, or why he was released. But his confinement affected warming Chinese-Australian relations. At the time Chinese officials barred Feng from leaving the country, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang was wrapping up his visit to Australia to discuss trade deals. Concerns over Feng’s situation caused the shelving of an extradition treaty the two countries had worked on for 10 years.

After arriving back in Sydney, Feng said he could not discuss what Chinese officials questioned him about but said he suspected international pressure led to his release.

“For anyone who gets in trouble in China, the support of the international community, especially the international media, is essential,” Feng told The New York Times. “That is the only thing that will make them care.”