Yes, I can speak to that to some extent, but also bear in mind that there was one other instance of an Australian citizen being arbitrarily detained in China in recent years—Cheng Lei. She was released late last year, I think after very extensive interventions and negotiations with the Australian government.
Tragically, we have one good news story and one bad news story. Going to Dr. Yang Hengjun, it's very clear from the Chinese government statements in the last week or two that there is absolutely no intention of releasing him. In fact, he has been convicted in the very opaque and arbitrary way of the PRC system.
He's been convicted of an alleged espionage offence and formally given a death sentence which, as we understand it, has been suspended for the time being. Now, part of that tragedy is that the suspension of the sentence may be quite meaningless, because it's understood that he is very ill and that his health condition could well be a consequence of medical neglect during his detention. His family in Australia, his friends, supporters and, I think, Australian society generally are facing the prospect that he may never return to this country.
He is an Australian citizen and has been for quite some time. The coverage of his case increasingly now refers to his earlier status not only as a PRC citizen but as an employee of Chinese government agencies. Reportedly the foreign ministry and the ministry of state security are not in a position to comment with any kind of expertise on that, one way or another.
However, it's been argued in the Australian media coverage that perhaps one reason the Chinese state is so insistent on holding onto him is a sense that he is effectively one of their own, effectively someone who was within the Communist Party security apparatus, who later in life became convinced of the virtues of democracy and has been fearless in campaigning for that. Therefore, in that sense, he's being used, perhaps, as a really ruthless example.
There's also a context and a question as to whether his continued imprisonment and the shadow of his death sentence are some form of continued signalling of coercion to the Australian government, effectively a kind of good behaviour bond for Australian diplomatic respect for China.