Australian journalist says he fled China after authorities threatened to detain his teenage daughter

Former ABC bureau chief Matthew Carney has told his story of fleeing China for the first time

Chinese authorities threatened to detain an Australian journalist and his 14-year-old daughter two years ago, in apparent retaliation for his coverage of China.

Matthew Carney, then the Australian Broadcasting Corp’s Beijing bureau chief, was already bracing for trouble after being reprimanded by Chinese foreign ministry representatives upset over his coverage, which they had deemed unfavourable to the country.

The last meeting he had with representatives ended with him being told he had personally broken Chinese laws and was now under ‘investigation.’

The problems continued when Carney sought to renew his journalist visa. During the process, he was instructed to report to a facility and to bring his daughter, where a lead interrogator later alleged she had broken visa rules.

He was told because his daughter is an adult under Chinese law, that "as the People’s Republic of China is a law-abiding country, she will be charged with the visa crime.”

Matthew Carney left China two years ago

“I do have to inform you, Mr Carney, that we have a right to keep your daughter in an undisclosed location,” she said.

Carney says the interrogator also told him: “You can’t leave the People’s Republic of China! You are under investigation and we have put an exit ban on your passport.”

Carney and his daughter’s exit bans were lifted after he and his family were forced to "confess" to their visa crimes.

Carney shared his experience for the first time on Monday in a story for ABC, saying he had chosen not to do so earlier over concerns of “negative consequences” for his Australian journalist colleagues remaining in China.

That changed after ABC correspondent Bill Birtles and Australian Financial Review’s Michael Smith – the last two journalists based in China for Australian media outlets – fled the country earlier this month during a diplomatic standoff.

Chinese state security visited the homes of Birtles in Beijing and Smith to inform them that exit bans had been placed on them as they were part of an ‘investigation,’ and that as such both needed to submit to interrogation.

The Australian government sheltered the pair, and eventually were able to secure a guarantee from the Chinese government for the journalists to leave the country after an hour-long interrogation.

Foreign journalists based in China are facing increasing harassment and pressure from Chinese authorities over coverage the government dislikes.

In the first half of this year alone as diplomatic tensions rose with the West, the Chinese government expelled 17 foreign journalists, according to the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China.

“The effort to keep foreign journalists in China against their will marks a significant escalation of an ongoing, sustained Chinese government assault on media freedoms,” the FCCC said in a statement about Birtles and Smith.

The FCCC said it “denounces” Chinese government actions that have led “foreign journalists to fear that they could be targets of China’s hostage diplomacy.”