The timing could not have been worse. Just as Chinese Premier Li Keqiang was visiting Australia, Chinese security services detained a University of Technology Sydney professor because of suspicions about his research on human rights. In the most benign interpretation, the arrest demonstrates the difficulties of guiding and coordinating the vast Chinese ship of state; in its worst, it shows a contempt for Australia and an arrogance that smaller countries can expect from Beijing. Regardless of the why, however, the detention spotlights China's questionable record when it comes to respect for academic freedom and human rights, and has jeopardized an important item on Beijing's agenda with Canberra.

Chongyi Feng's work focuses on human rights lawyers in China. Those advocates have come under increasing pressure during the tenure of President Xi Jinping. Amnesty International has concluded that the Chinese government has drafted and enacted "a series of new national security laws that presented serious threats to the protection of human rights. ... Activists and human rights defenders continued to be systematically subjected to monitoring, harassment, intimidation, arrest and detention." Some 250 lawyers and activists have been arrested in a national crackdown since 2015.

Last month, diplomatic representatives of 11 countries in China, Australia among them, sent a letter to Guo Shengkun, China's minister of public security, that expressed "growing concern over recent claims of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment in cases concerning detained human rights lawyers and other human rights defenders." It also called on Beijing to investigate reports of torture against human rights lawyers and urged the Chinese government to abandon a detention system that holds suspects in secret locations for months at a time. To its credit, Japan was one of the 11 signatories.