Australian arrested in China for ‘espionage’

An Australian pro-democracy academic held for seven months in China has been formally arrested for spying, Foreign Minister Marise Payne said yesterday as she demanded Beijing uphold “basic standards” of justice. Chinese-born Yang Hengjun -- a former official turned author -- had been detained after returning to China from the United States in January. Now in his 50s, he had used popular blog and social media posts to criticise Beijing’s authoritarian government. He has a following of more than 125,000 on Twitter alone.