A14 EZ SU THE WASHINGTON POST.WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 28 , 2019
BY ANNA FIFIELD
beijing — China said Tuesday
that it had formally arrested an
Australian writer and academic
on suspicion of espionage, the
latest case in which Beijing ap-
pears to be taking foreign hostag-
es as leverage in disputes with
Western governments.
Yang Hengjun, a novelist and
former Chinese official who gave
up his nationality and immigrat-
ed to Australia, had written blog
posts pushing for greater demo-
cratic and human rights for Chi-
nese citizens. He had also taken
citizenship in a U.S.-allied nation
that has largely sided with Wash-
ington in a global clash over Chi-
nese-made technology.
The case adds to worsening
friction between Beijing and
Western democracies, including
Australia, as the Communist Par-
ty takes increasingly assertive ac-
tion to counter what it perceives
as U.S.-led efforts to contain Chi-
na’s rise.
Australia was “very concerned
and disappointed” to learn that
Yang had been formally arrested
Friday on espionage allegations
and that he would remain in crim-
inal detention in China, Foreign
Minister Marise Payne said Tues-
day.
“Dr. Yang has been held in
Beijing in harsh conditions with-
out charge for more than seven
months,” Payne said. “Since that
time, China has not explained the
reasons for Dr. Yang’s detention,
nor has it allowed him access to
his lawyers or family visits.”
China’s Foreign Ministry on
Tuesday confirmed that Yang,
who is also known as Yang Jun,
was suspected of spying, adding
that he was in good health and
that Chinese national security de-
partments were handling the
matter.
“China deplores Australia’s
statement on this case,” ministry
spokesman Geng Shuang told re-porters at a regular briefing. “Aus-
tralia should duly respect the le-
gal sovereignty of China and must
not interfere by any means, as
China is handling the case accord-
ing to law.”
Yang was detained in January
when he traveled from New York,
where he was a visiting scholar at
Columbia University, to the
southern Chinese city of Guang-
zhou with his wife and two chil-
dren. His family members were
allowed to continue their journey
to Shanghai, but Yang has been
held in Beijing without charge
since then.
He was seized one month after
China detained two Canadians,
Michael Kovrig and Michael Spa-
vor, who have since been arrested
and charged with serious offens-
es.
Kovrig, a former Canadian dip-
lomat who had been working as a
China analyst for the Internation-
al Crisis Group think tank, is
accused of spying and stealing
sensitive information and intelli-
gence through contacts in China.
Spavor, a businessman who pro-
moted exchanges with North Ko-rea, was Kovrig’s “main intelli-
gence contact” and provided in-
formation to him, the authorities
said.
None of the men has had access
to a lawyer or family members
since being detained.
The cases appear to have links
to disputes between Beijing and
Western governments over Hua-
wei, the Chinese technology giant
that is trying to become the world
leader in 5G systems.
Spavor and Kovrig were de-
tained just 10 days after Canada
arrested Meng Wanzhou, the
chief financial officer of Huawei
and daughter of its founder, at the
behest of the United States. The
Justice Department is seeking to
extradite Meng on charges of con-
spiracy to commit fraud in viola-
tion of U.S. sanctions against Iran.
Officials from the United States
and Australia have said that Hua-
wei and its equipment may be
used by China to spy on the West,
and they have barred Huawei
from participating in their 5G
telecom networks.
One of Yang’s close friends,
Feng Chongyi, an associate pro-fessor at the University of Tech-
nology in Sydney, said China was
using the writer as a hostage to
apply political pressure to Aus-
tralia and the United States to
relax restrictions on Huawei.
The seven-month period that
Yang has already spent in deten-
tion demonstrates that the Chi-
nese security services have been
unable to extract a confession,
Feng said.
“That is an outrageous charge,
and they have not produced any
evidence,” he said. “The Austral-
ian government must use all its
power to convince the Chinese
government to lay all its evidence
on the table. Pressure from the
Australian government or public
is needed for the Chinese authori-
ties to back down.”
Australia’s relations with Chi-
na, its top trading partner, have
also grown chillier after Canber-
ra’s passage last year of laws de-
signed to prevent foreign inter-
ference in the country’s political
system. More recently, officials
have voiced concerns about the
actions of Australia-based sup-
porters of Beijing, particularlyChinese students, who have
sought to stifle shows of support
for anti-government demonstra-
tors in Hong Kong.
On Tuesday, China rejected a
Group of Seven leaders’ state-
ment reaffirming support for the
1984 Sino-British agreement set-
ting out the terms of Hong Kong’s
1997 return to Chinese sovereign-
ty.
“China expresses strong dis-
content and firm opposition to
the carping remarks and finger-
pointing about Hong Kong at the
G-7 leaders summit,” Geng, the
Foreign Ministry spokesman,
said in Beijing. He accused the G-
nations of “harboring evil inten-
tions.”
Chinese officials have previ-
ously accused the United States of
stoking months of protests in
Hong Kong, where street clashes
between police and protesters
have pushed the city into its worst
political crisis in decades.
[email protected]A. Odysseus Patrick in Sydney and
Lyric Li in Beijing contributed to this
report.China formally arrests Australian academic, accuses him of espionage
Latest case of Beijing
seeming to hold hostages
as leverageBY ARELIS R. HERNÁNDEZ
Puerto Rico, still recovering
from the devastation of Hurri-
cane Maria two years ago, is
bracing for the possible landfall
of Tropical Storm Dorian on
Wednesday, what could be the
first major test for an island that
experienced widespread suffer-
ing and where thousands of
people died in the aftermath of
the last cyclone to make a direct
hit.
Dorian is expected to strike
the U.S. territory’s southern
coast early Wednesday with
winds of up to 50 mph, according
to the National Hurricane Cen-
ter, and it could intensify into a
hurricane as it churns through
the warm waters of the Caribbe-
an Sea toward the archipelago.
There is a chance the storm could
pass between Puerto Rico and
the Dominican Republic to the
west, but Dorian’s winds almost
certainly will cause some sea
surge and lash the western and
central regions of the island.
Though forecasters expect a
relatively tame storm as com-
pared with Maria — a monstrous
Category 4 hurricane that came
with 140 mph winds — Puerto
Rico officials are preparing for
all scenarios. Of particular con-
cern is the possibility of damage
to an improving but still vulner-
able power grid that is suscepti-
ble to frequent outages; authori-
ties also worry about thousands
of homes that are still without
roofs.
“This is going to be a test,” said
Nick Russo, the Federal Emer-gency Management Agency’s fed-
eral coordinating officer in Puer-
to Rico. “The people of Puerto
Rico have been through a lot, and
we have learned the lessons of
the past.”
Puerto Rico has been recuper-
ating slowly since September
2017, hobbled by delays in federal
disaster aid distribution and ma-
jor political upheaval in recent
months. But officials say it is
nowhere near ready for the on-
slaught of a severe storm because
of the damage inflicted by Maria.
That hurricane, which engulfed
almost the entire island of more
than 3 million people, wiped out
electric power, compromised wa-
ter delivery systems and shut
down telecommunications.
It also exposed failures in
emergency preparation and re-
sponse, with some isolated com-
munities not receiving any help
for days.
FEMA has pre-positioned 300emergency workers to respond to
Dorian and have filled five re-
gional warehouses with 10 times
as much water, food, blankets
and tarps as was in storage on
the island before Maria. Russo
said he has been in Puerto Rico
since the beginning of the hurri-
cane season in June to oversee
preparations and coordinate
with the local government. The
greatest dangers from Dorian, he
said, are associated with rain and
flash floods near and around
Puerto Rico’s second-largest city,
Ponce — a region that is home to
the giant electricity plants that
power the entire territory.
Dorian also could create a
critical moment for Puerto Rico’s
new governor, Wanda Vásquez
Garced. The former justice secre-
tary was sworn in as governor
last month after a political scan-
dal that triggered massive pro-
tests and forced then-Gov. Ricar-
do Rosselló to resign. The formergovernor was widely criticized
for his government’s handling of
Hurricane Maria’s aftermath,
specifically in the areas of electri-
cal infrastructure and access to
medicine, clean water and reli-
able health care.
“I can say we are better pre-
pared,” Vásquez Garced said in a
statement Tuesday.
The governor has met with
federal emergency officials to
position backup generators at
hospitals and other critical insti-
tutions, stock up on gasoline,
ensure the island’s power compa-
ny, PREPA, has enough utility
poles and transformers in inven-
tory, and to supply mayors with
working satellite phones.
More than 2,000 health pro-
fessionals were authorized to
complete death certificates and
document the causes — a move
aimed at generating more accu-
rate numbers after the Rosselló
administration was accused ofmishandling the fatality count.
With nearly a third of Puerto
Rico’s residents depending on
federal food stamps, the gover-
nor authorized the administra-
tion to release monthly benefits
ahead of the storm, allowing
people to stock up on at least
10 days of supplies in case the
power goes out or water service
is interrupted.
Orocovis Mayor Jesus Colón
Berlingeri is watching the fore-
cast closely.
The latest projection showed
his central mountain community
lying in the cone of impact,
which could mean landslides,
downed trees and flooding. Two
years ago, he didn’t have the
generators, radios or plans to
face the coming storm. But his
community learned its lesson.
“I feel more prepared,” he said.
“But each storm is different. We
don’t know yet what we’re in for.”
[email protected]Tropical Storm Dorian to test a Puerto Rico still in recovery
U.S. territory is better
prepared than before
Maria, officials sayWe Build Trust &
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