Now it's just about official: China will take hostages to achieve its goals. It wants the world to know.
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We can expect more seizures of foreigners by Beijing. Australian companies with activities there must consider risks to their employees.
Also, Australians who remain in China are no doubt thinking again about whether they should leave. For long-term expats it's is a hard decision. I can sympathise.
A week ago, the finance chief of Chinese telecommunications-equipment maker Huawei, Meng Wanzhou, left Canada after doing a deal with US prosecutors who had been seeking her extradition; the deal included admitting to such crimes as bank fraud.
Two Canadians who had been seized in China just after her 2018 arrest were freed at the same time. And two Americans who had been prevented from leaving China were suddenly allowed to do so.
For some people, the timing proves what has been suspected: that the Canadians were jailed and the Americans confined to China to secure Meng's release, regardless of her guilt.
But their status as hostages was never in doubt. The real news is that, by making its actions so obvious, China is warning other countries.
Most obviously, the message is that a Chinese citizen of sufficient prominence must be above the law internationally. But there's also a general implication that China is willing to take hostages if another country disobeys it.
Since 2018 there have been reports of senior Australian executives choosing not to go to China for business, instead sending underlings. It would be interesting to know what the underlings have thought about this.
Business reasons for sending managers to China are strong. An Australian company can't fully rely on a local partner, which will of course put its own profits first and may not be too honest in doing so.
Even an Australian company's own Chinese office will need close supervision, because the culture of guanxi (connections) can undermine the discipline of staff in looking after their employer's interest.
But boards and chief executives must think about whether a diplomatic crisis could occur while Australian employees are in China, and whether the government there, subject to no rule of law and increasingly hostile to this country, will make an arrest or two.
Or 20. Why not?
Employers might want to ask their lawyers about liability in such circumstances.
Australians living in China also need to think whether staying is really important enough. This includes those in Hong Kong, who must now know they are not beyond the clutches of the Chinese Communist Party.
The decision to leave is not easy, especially for those with long years of local experience. I know because I had to go through this last year.
For me, Beijing really was home; I'd lived there for 16 years. I was well used to Chinese society, its idiosyncrasies, its many virtues and sometimes exasperating irritations.
I had far more friends in China than Australia. They were all Chinese (I didn't mix with expats) and I expected to see few of them again if I left and never returned - which was what I had to contemplate.
That was the hardest part: I'd never go back.
MORE BRADLEY PERRETT:
Also, working in China was important for my job with a US defence and aerospace publisher. I was a China specialist and spoke Chinese. Beijing was exactly where I should be.
Many Australians in China are in similar situations.
For me, China made it easier by increasingly expelling other journalists working for US media. So my mind turned to the possibility of having to leave.
I had noted China's arbitrary arrests of foreigners over the years, including Australians, but I judged that the danger was not high. Expulsion seemed more probable.
There was a morning in August 2020 when I got out of bed in Beijing not knowing whether I'd sleep in my home again. My residency permit was expiring that day, and the foreign ministry had so far withheld the press card that I needed for renewing it. Having tormented me enough, the ministry issued the card that morning and the Public Security Bureau renewed the permit.
I immediately took a holiday to northeastern China that I'd planned for years. Now or never, I thought.
During my holiday, an Australian working for Chinese state television, Cheng Lei, was arrested, disappearing into a prison system from which she will emerge only if the CCP one day thinks she should. I still thought it was OK to stay.
On the morning after I returned, news broke that the authorities had tried to detain two more Australians - the ABC's Bill Birtles and Australian Financial Review's Michael Smith.
"I may have to go," I thought. "This is a big decision, it has to be right and I must think quickly."
The next morning a little more information was available, and I decided: I had to go.
A high-level Australian Foreign Affairs source suggested that the diplomatic dispute behind the latest trouble was now over.
"This one may be over," I said. "But there will be more and they will be worse."
"I hope you're wrong," he said, notably not disagreeing.
And that, more than anything, is what Australians in China need to be thinking about. What crisis could emerge next? How bad could it be? What will China do?
While I was assessing the danger over the years, I couldn't answer those questions. I was forever overestimating my ability to estimate.
A year later, I'm sure my final decision was right.
But it's still hard for me to think that I will never return to China. I miss it badly.
- Bradley Perrett was based in Beijing as a journalist from 2004 to 2020.
- This article is supported by the Judith Neilson Institute for Journalism and Ideas.