Chinese state media journalist breaks silence about seven-hour ASIO raid

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A Chinese state media journalist has broken his silence about a seven-hour ASIO raid conducted in front of his young daughter in their Sydney home. Yang Jingzhong, who until leaving for China in August was the head of Sydney’s Xinhua News Agency bureau, said the encounter with Australia’s intelligence agency began at 6.30am on June 26.

When Yang was in sleep and sudden knock on the door, he opened the door to his Sydney apartment he found more than a dozen officers from the police and Australian Security Intelligence Agency, holding a search warrant and citing the federal government’s new foreign interference act.

He said, he was shocked and he he thought that he violates any law. However, my daughter had never experienced such a scene and was very frightened.

The account is the first by any of four state media journalists who were raided.

The Chinese reporters Yang, China News Service bureau chief Tao Shelan, China Radio International Sydney head Li Dayong and a second, still unnamed female reporter were also the subjects of the ASIO investigation was revealed by Chinese state media after the ABC’s Beijing reporter Bill Birtles and Australian Financial Review’s Shanghai correspondent Michael Smith left China following a midnight visit by state security.

In his account published by Xinhua on Tuesday evening, Yang said the entirety of the encounter was recorded. He was allowed to contact the Chinese Foreign Ministry, his employer Xinhua and the Sydney consulate, using a phone provided by the officers.

Yang said he left Australia two months later. “My normal work and life in Australia were completely disrupted. Australia has never given a convincing reason or basis for why the raid was conducted.