What I saw during 22 hours in Beijing with Penny Wong
The call came through last Tuesday evening: “Would you like to travel to Beijing with Penny Wong next week?”
The visit was top-secret information and wouldn’t be announced until six days later. There was a chance a COVID-19 infection could scuttle the trip, embarrassing the Chinese government. In the meantime, we had to frantically obtain visas, organise PCR tests and arrange technology fixes. Authoritarian China is a high-risk environment for hacking so we travelled with new phones, telephone numbers and laptops that would be discarded as soon as the trip ended.
In the age of COVID-19, the guesthouse doubles as a quarantine hotel. We were allowed to wander between the villas but couldn’t leave the compound; meals were served on TV-dinner style trays delivered to our rooms. Meanwhile, an RAAF crew slept overnight aboard the government jet, suffering the freezing cold to make sure the aircraft could not be interfered with in any way.
Foreign Minister Penny Wong explores the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing with Ambassador Graham Fletcher.“The ice thaws, but slowly,” Wong remarked while walking with Australian ambassador Graham Fletcher, drawing an allusion to the recent improvement in Australia-China relations.Wong’s meeting with Wang took place at 6.30pm Australian time, making it a scramble to file on their opening remarks in time for newspaper deadlines.
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