China has to be the biggest worry to the entire world 
Once upon a time, albeit long ago, they were at least subtle 
'You will be put into detention': Former ABC bureau chief tells story of fleeing China for first time
3hrs ago
It was late on a Friday evening and I was about to head home from the ABC's Beijing office when the telephone rang.On the other end of the line was a man from the Central Cyberspace Affairs Commission.
He refused to give his name but insisted one of the ABC's Chinese staff write down the statement he was about to dictate.
The
man told us our reporting had "violated China's laws and regulations,
spread rumours and illegal, harmful information which endangered state
security and damaged national pride".
It was August 31, 2018, and I had been the ABC's China bureau chief since January 2016, working alongside reporter Bill Birtles.
Three weeks earlier the ABC's website had been suddenly banned in China and ever since I had been pushing for an official reason why. The telephone call came, and there it was.
But
the call also marked the beginning of something else: more than three
months of intimidation until my family and I were effectively forced to
leave China.
They wanted me to know they were watching
I
am telling this story for the first time. After my departure from China
I was reluctant to report what had happened because I did not want to
harm the ABC's operations in China, put staff at risk or threaten the
chances of my successor as bureau chief, Sarah Ferguson, being granted a
journalist's visa to China.
But all that changed when Birtles and the Australian Financial Review's Mike Smith fled the country this month.
My story — which occurred two years earlier — suggests there is more to their actions against foreign journalists than tit-for-tat reprisals as the Chinese portray it.
The
fact is that every foreign journalist in China is under surveillance.
But tracking of my activities picked up significantly after that Friday
night phone call.
There is the kind of surveillance the Chinese government wants you to know about. When I was reporting on the mass detentions of Uyghurs in Xinjiang,
for example, the ABC team was surrounded by about 20 security
officials, followed by midnight knocks on our hotel room doors and
questioning about our daily activities.
But there is also the hidden cyber surveillance and occasionally I saw it in action.
One
night in the early hours of the morning I woke to see someone remotely
controlling my phone and accessing my email account. They searched and
found an email from activists in New York that I was CC'd into
requesting to have the famous ABC "tank man" footage from the Tiananmen
Square massacre given a UNESCO heritage listing.
The email was left open so I could see it, which I believe was a deliberate attempt to let me know they were watching.
I
continued to work as normal. I feel strongly that the moment you adjust
your reporting to placate the Chinese authorities, it is the moment you
should leave.
Our future was in the hands of Chinese authorities
One
way the Chinese authorities try to force foreign journalists to
self-censor their work is by threatening not to renew the 12-month
residency visas.
I anticipated trouble, so
submitted my renewal application six weeks before it was due to expire.
If things were okay, you could expect approval in about 10 days. I
didn't get a response.
Instead, I was ordered to the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs for "a cup of tea", a phrase that every foreign journalist knows
is a euphemism for a dressing down.
When I
entered the room, my government-appointed minder Mr Ouyang was standing
with Ms Sun, an unassuming, bespectacled Chinese bureaucrat. She poured
me a cup of tea.
Ms Sun had a pile of my story
transcripts sitting in her lap. She drew them out one-by-one, referring
to each in turn: "Re-education camps in Xinjiang! Political executions! Imprisoning of labour activists! Experts labelling Xi Jinping a dictator!!!" With each story her anger grew until she was enraged.
The session continued for two hours and it was quite a performance.
Ms
Sun claimed I had abused all the people and leadership of China. I
countered that I didn't know how that could be possible considering the
ABC website had been banned in China.
This
infuriated her further and she went on to lay out a more serious charge:
I had personally broken Chinese laws and was now under investigation.
As
I left the meeting that day, I felt vulnerable. I knew my future, and
that of my family, was now in the hands of the Chinese authorities.
I was berated for any 'negative' China coverage
Over
the next two weeks I was called in twice more for "cups of tea". The
meetings were always angry and always lead by Ms Sun. But the focus had
widened.
I was berated for any "negative" China coverage the ABC did on any platform and any program, particularly the Four Corners stories investigating Chinese interference in Australia's democracy.
As
the ABC bureau chief, the boss, they believed I should take
responsibility for these stories. In their view I was an appointment of
the Australian Government and as such could be pressured as a means of
passing a message to Canberra.
In a country like China where media is tightly
controlled, understanding the concept of independence — the fundamental
difference between a state broadcaster and a public broadcaster like the
ABC — is not straightforward.
In my last meeting, Ms Sun still would not tell me if my visa renewal was going ahead.
But she did reveal one important detail: the matter was now out of her hands.
A
"higher authority was in charge of the investigation", she said, and
was outraged by Australia's new interference laws (some of the toughest
in the world at that point).
Something was wrong
It was now a week before my visa was due to expire and with it the supporting visas for my wife and three children.
We
booked flights back to Sydney for the following Friday night. The plan
was to shield the kids from the drama and if worst came to worst, pick
them up from school and leave straight for the airport.
We continued life as normally as possible. My wife,
Catherine, was incredible under this pressure making calm, rational
judgements all the way through the saga.
Early on
Monday morning it appeared we had a breakthrough. I was told the visa
had been approved and when I arrived at the office Mr Ouyang was
waiting.
The atmosphere was tense.
He
told me, with a cold anger, I had an extension of only two months (I'd
asked for a year) and then added pointedly: "Don't expect to return to
the People's Republic of China" and "don't think this mess ends with
you".
Relieved the uncertainty and stress appeared
to be over, Catherine and I went to the immigration police to have visa
extensions stamped into our passports.
The
official at the desk began entering our details into the system, but
suddenly the mood changed. Something was wrong. We were told to
immediately report to Public Security.
It was clear this ordeal was far from over. In fact, there had just been a major escalation.
Then the penny dropped
Once
in the hands of Public Security we entered into territory where
interrogations and detentions are the norm. As I mulled the
possibilities, fear sank into my gut. If this is where our investigation
had ended up, then we were in serious trouble.
We
were instructed to report to a facility in north Beijing and told to
bring my daughter Yasmine, who was 14 at the time, as she was now part
of the investigation.
This felt like a line in the sand for me. I could not accept that they would involve my children.
At
the same time I was frightened. It felt like part of the Chinese
playbook: to go after family members as a way to exact punishment and
revenge.
We turned up the next morning at 7:30am
and walked into a large security complex. By this stage the Australian
Embassy, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and my ABC bosses were
aware of what was happening and were monitoring my movements.
The
complex was newly built but mostly empty, except for the staff sitting
dutifully at their workstations. It was so clean you could smell
antiseptic. At end of a corridor an official told us to wait.
A
short time later I was called into an office where three people were
waiting at a desk. A woman, flanked by two older men, was clearly in
charge. They did not give their titles or names. The woman told me in a
tone that came across as arrogant that the investigation was about a
visa violation.
Then the penny dropped — this is
how I would be expelled from China: a visa violation would avoid a
possible escalation with the Australian Government if I was charged with
a more serious offence.
I had spent the past
three years reporting on dissidents and Communist Party purges where the
targets were often convicted of lesser crimes like arson or immoral
behaviour.
'You will be put into detention'
The most pressing question was to yet to be answered: Why my daughter?
Then
the lead interrogator, the woman, replied in slow, strident English:
"Your daughter is 14 years old. She is an adult under Chinese law and as
the People's Republic of China is a law-abiding country she will be
charged with the visa crime".
I replied that as her father I would take responsibility for her "visa crimes". After all, I had put her in this position.
After a pause the woman answered: "Do you know that as a law-abiding country we have the right to detain your daughter?"
She
knew she had total power over me and she let the words sink in. After
some time she added: "I do have to inform you, Mr Carney, that we have a
right to keep your daughter in an undisclosed location and I do have to
inform you there would be other adults present".
I
told her any attempt at this, and I would escalate the situation by
involving the Australian Embassy and Australian Government, which was
aware of my case.
But if she was trying to terrify me, it was working.
As my final offering, I said to her that we would leave China the next day, no problem.
She
laughed in response and said: "Mr Carney, you can't leave the People's
Republic of China! You are under investigation and we have put an exit
ban on your passport".
Ok, I said. What happens when our visas run out this Saturday? I hoped she might say we would be expelled immediately.
Instead she smiled and said, "Well, you will be put into detention".
Was it all just theatre?
Panic was setting in, but I had to pull myself together and come up with a plan.
In a break I made a pact with Catherine: we would never let Yasmine out of our sight or be moved to separate locations.
After
a round of calls to embassy staff, Chinese colleagues and the ABC, we
all decided the best approach was to confess guilt and apologise for the
"visa crime", with the condition that Yasmine stayed with us. She was
mostly unaware of the severity of the situation.
I returned to the woman in the security office and did just that.
One of the men with her, who had a friendly, chubby
face, explained the visa violation had come about because I had not
transferred the visa that was about to expire from my current passport
into a new passport that I had just had issued, within a 10-day
timeframe. Instead (as advised) I was applying to have the new visa
placed directly into the new passport. Was I guilty? Oh yes, I was! I
was just relieved there was no other serious charges.
My best hope was this interrogation was all just theatre, designed to scare and humiliate.
The
woman then interjected and instructed us to return the next day when my
daughter and I would be required to give a taped video confession.
I
went in first at 9:00am. The chubby-faced man set up a camera and
pushed record and answered question after question about my travel
itinerary over the past year.
Finally, it was time to confess my guilt: "Yes, I didn't put visas in my new passport."
My daughter, with my wife beside her, was called in next to give her confession.
By
this stage the man with the chubby face was quite friendly. If this was
all it was going to be, then it felt like a good sign. But you never
knew.
'The investigation is over'
When
the lead interrogator returned she told us she would consider our
confessions, write a report on our case and send it to "the higher
authority" for judgement.
To heighten the tension
once again, she said a result could take weeks. Our visas were running
out in four days and by now we knew the consequences.
We went home defeated and with no idea what would happen next. But at least we were all still together.
Then suddenly, early the next morning, we got a phone call.
"The investigation is over. The visa extension of two months has been granted. Come immediately back to the security office".
The man with the chubby face was waiting for us.
My daughter and I were asked to sign and thumb print every page of the transcripts from our "confessions", many pages long.
Then
with a handshake and a smile he presented us with a certificate stating
we were guilty of a visa violation. Our lead interrogator looked on
sternly as we left the building, relieved.
A flight out never felt so good
There was one more twist to my story.
A program I made on China's social credit system which uses digital technology to keep control of the population, was getting tens of millions of views around the world.
The Chinese woman I featured in the story as a "model
citizen" threatened legal action against me in the civil courts for
defamation. Her husband was an active and ambitious Communist Party
member. Was this another way to intimidate me and the ABC?
I
took advice from an American lawyer based in Beijing who urged me to
leave China immediately. As soon as legal proceedings were lodged
against me, an exit ban would be activated.
He claimed to be representing dozens of foreigners in a similar position, some who had been stuck for years.
I
was counting down the days before we could leave China for good. This
wasn't the way I wanted it to end my posting, leaving behind one the
world's biggest stories and many good Chinese friends.
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max manewer wrote:
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