Another Australian, Cheng Lei ('journalist' for CCP propaganda channel CGTN and former partner of Nick Coyle, the chief executive of the China-Australian Chamber of Commerce in Beijing) taken hostage by the #CCP theaustralian.com.au/nation/politic…
The Australian government is openly desperate to pretend this has nothing to do with bilateral relations and could be related to social media posts or internal power struggles.
Ridiculous.
The CCP's Global Times editor-in-chief Hu Xijin has criticised the secrecy of the arrest as a propaganda failure.
"It is necessary to race against time to send news, spread the Chinese perspective and attitude to the world as soon as possible." theaustralian.com.au/business/media…
'I feared being disappeared': Inside @FinancialReview's China correspondent Michael Smith's escape from #China
CCP is hunting Australian journalists and citizens to collect more hostages in their political pressure campaign
afr.com/world/asia/ins…
The #CCP simultaneously attempted to detain @abcnews's China correspondent @billbirtles, who thankfully also escaped abc.net.au/news/2020-09-0…
This looks more like an intimidation exercise than an outright attempt to secure hostages, unless Australia secretly conceded something politically to get them back, which is entirely possible.
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