Australia 'deeply disappointed' China criminally detains man

Australia’s foreign minister says her government is “deeply disappointed” that a Chinese-Australian writer has been placed in criminal detention in Beijing after six months under house arrest.

Foreign Minister Marise Payne said on Friday that China had normally notified her government that Yang Hengjun had been taken into criminal detention.

Payne says in a statement: “The Australian government is deeply disappointed that Australian citizen and academic Dr. Yang Hengjun … has been transferred to criminal detention in China.”

The 53-year-old visiting scholar at Columbia University in New York has been detained since Jan. 19, when he arrived from New York at China’s Guangzhou Airport with his wife and his 14-year-old stepdaughter.