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Speaker 1: Jab Mission with Jones and Amanda.

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Speaker 2: Our next guest was the ABC's correspondent in China from

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Speaker 2: twenty fifteen to last September as relations between Australia and

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Speaker 2: Beijing deteriorated. Bill Burtles was out of China in September

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Speaker 2: under very scary circumstances, seeking refuge at the Australian Embassy

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Speaker 2: in Beijing as diplomats negotiated His return home an extraordinary story,

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Speaker 2: and he's written a new book called The Truth About China.

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Speaker 2: He joins US now Bill bertles.

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Speaker 3: Hello, Amanda, good morning.

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Speaker 4: Hello Bill.

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Speaker 2: Nice to talk to you. Well, let's start with some

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Speaker 2: of the extraordinary stories that you've covered in China, particularly

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Speaker 2: you being front and center in Wuhan minutes before that

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Speaker 2: city went into lockdown. Did you have any idea what

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Speaker 2: was about to unfold?

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Speaker 4: No, because back then it was kind of unbelievable, the

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Speaker 4: concepts that you would lock down a major city. And

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Speaker 4: it's all become so normal that we've flown in already

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Speaker 4: being aware that this virus story had been brewing for

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Speaker 4: a few weeks, but of course.

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Speaker 5: We didn't know how how big a deal it was.

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Speaker 4: I had to make a bit of a judgment.

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Speaker 5: Course, we finally.

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Speaker 3: Went in and the night we got there was when

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Speaker 3: they said at two in the morning they were going

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Speaker 3: to lock this city down by up an am all lights,

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Speaker 3: all trains, all cars.

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Speaker 5: We banned from leaving, so we had to make a

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Speaker 5: call do we go or do we stay? In the end,

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Speaker 5: we left, and I still.

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Speaker 4: Have some reservations because we stayed, we probably would have

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Speaker 4: been evacuated to Australia and hadn't even seen a story.

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Speaker 5: But that was the beginning of it all.

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Speaker 1: And when we watched that unfolding, I remember watching them

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Speaker 1: welding up the doors of those unit blocks in Wuhan.

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Speaker 1: I thank god we don't live there. That's crazy.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, the a bit of that sort of stuff happens.

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Speaker 3: I think in general it was such a kind of

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Speaker 3: trial and error period for the whole world because, of course,

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Speaker 3: my surprise, Australia ended up adopting so many of the

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Speaker 3: measures that the Chinese government imposed in Wuhan. It wasn't,

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Speaker 3: of course quite. It's strict, and there are measures over there,

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Speaker 3: things like mandatory location tracking data apps which you can't

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Speaker 3: opt out of, and they're very effective, but there are

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Speaker 3: too many privacy concerns here for people to be comfortable

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Speaker 3: with it, but things like lockdowns and all those sorts

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Speaker 3: of measures ended up being adopted here. Was really quite

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Speaker 3: extraordinary to watch it unfold.

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Speaker 2: There's been a giant diplomatic fallout since then. Is it

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Speaker 2: as simple as to say that they took offense when

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Speaker 2: our government said we'd like an inquiry into how the

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Speaker 2: virus started.

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Speaker 5: Oh?

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Speaker 3: To be honest, that falling out between Australia and China

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Speaker 3: had been brewing already for a couple of years, and

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Speaker 3: I was engaging documenting it all.

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Speaker 4: And they're all sorts.

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Speaker 5: Of small issues which were building up, and I think

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Speaker 5: the calls for independent inquiry was sort of like the

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Speaker 5: straw that broke the camel's back. But I always feel

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Speaker 5: it's a bit too simple to say that that's the

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Speaker 5: one reason why China has imposed all these trainemans.

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Speaker 3: I think there are something that he complicated and relatively

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Speaker 3: small reasons, which when you put them all together, you

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Speaker 3: can see why it's so hard to untangle this dispute.

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Speaker 1: And do we need China?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean we didn't need China many decades ago

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Speaker 3: before the opening up, but of course our economy these

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Speaker 3: days is totally hooked.

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Speaker 4: Were not totally, but to a.

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Speaker 3: Large extent hooked on China. So I think what this

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Speaker 3: is all done is it's kind of been a bit

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Speaker 3: of a wake up call to the universities, to the

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Speaker 3: beef exporters, to the barley growers that you don't want

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Speaker 3: to get two over reliant on one market, particularly when the.

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Speaker 5: Government of that market at the moment is pretty hostile

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Speaker 5: to Australia.

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Speaker 2: And so for the first time, and I don't know

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Speaker 2: how many years, there is not a correspondent in China.

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Speaker 2: The warning for you came kind of quickly, didn't it.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it was. I couldn't believe it when I was

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Speaker 3: told you must get out of China asap. You're at

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Speaker 3: risk of being arrested for national security. I thought, this

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Speaker 3: is the real and combam lead exaggeration. Things can't be

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Speaker 3: that bad.

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Speaker 5: For sure.

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Speaker 4: Within a couple of days, a little of COVID, it

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Speaker 4: wasn't easy to.

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Speaker 5: Get out, get to find out of them. But within

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Speaker 5: a couple of nights, the National security police weren't my

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Speaker 5: door at midnight.

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Speaker 3: Not to arrest me. You're involved in the case and

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Speaker 3: there's an exit ban on you. You will not be

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Speaker 3: able to leave China and we need to investigate you,

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Speaker 3: and so long story cuts short. It all sort of

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Speaker 3: appears to be a bit of retaliation for something that

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Speaker 3: Asyo over in Australia did to a few Chinese media

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Speaker 3: journalists in Sydney. They raided their homes for an investigation. So,

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Speaker 3: you know, tit for Tat the point is hard to believe,

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Speaker 3: going back a few years, that it would even get

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Speaker 3: to get to this level where you have midnight visits

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Speaker 3: from police, where you have diplomats evacuating you out of

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Speaker 3: the country. At the time, I had trouble believing that

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Speaker 3: it was all real.

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Speaker 1: What do you pack because you lived there for what

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Speaker 1: five years?

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Speaker 3: Well, the thing is was trying to pack and then

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Speaker 3: the police came and said you're not allowed to leave China.

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Speaker 3: So I didn't pack. I thought I'm not going anywhere.

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Speaker 3: And then the diplomat said, no, actually we think you

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Speaker 3: should come to the embassy. We need to need to

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Speaker 3: chat to you about this. And once we're at the embassy,

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Speaker 3: they said, actually we don't want you to leave the embassy.

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Speaker 4: We don't think I just had a little backpack on

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Speaker 4: with you know what you what you'd take on.

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Speaker 3: A normal day out. We ended up having to get

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Speaker 3: a REMOVALSS company to kind of go in because we

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Speaker 3: never saw our apartment again. Once we went to the

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Speaker 3: embassy thinking we were there for.

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Speaker 5: A bit of a chat. That was the last time

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Speaker 5: we saw our apartment.

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Speaker 3: We had a couple of cats who are now been

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Speaker 3: and opted out for some friends in Beijing. Yeah, it

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Speaker 3: wasn't It wasn't the ideal way to leave a country.

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Speaker 2: Wow. And is it a scary time to be an

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Speaker 2: Australian in China? Is it dangerous and scary?

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Speaker 5: One of those things where you talk to the Australians

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Speaker 5: who are still there and they I know how they feel.

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Speaker 4: That's how I say, Look, life on the ground going

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Speaker 4: on out all this talk the headlines about.

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Speaker 3: Conflict and disputs and so forth. Yeah, it's there in

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Speaker 3: the background. But if you're running a business, or if

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Speaker 3: you're working as an English teacher or whatever, then life

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Speaker 3: does still seem pretty normal.

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Speaker 5: But what we.

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Speaker 3: Certainly felt over the past couple of years was that

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Speaker 3: in China at the moment, the country is becoming extremely

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Speaker 3: nationalistic and that has affected attitudes towards America or Australia.

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Speaker 3: Western countries so certainly it's still, you know, pretty friendly

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Speaker 3: on street level, but the overall sentiment towards any Western

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Speaker 3: country is deteriorating quite a bit.

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Speaker 1: Wow, And would you go back, Yeah, I would.

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Speaker 3: Jonesie, because I've invested a lot of my life over there.

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Speaker 5: I speak the language.

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Speaker 3: I've been going on off China working at the Journalist

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Speaker 3: for many years. So I would because I believe what

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Speaker 3: happened to me was a bit of retaliation. I could

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Speaker 3: understand it wasn't really about me. But I've certainly not

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Speaker 3: planning to in the coming years. I think at the

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Speaker 3: moment things are just a bit too fraught.

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Speaker 1: It's like Chinese food. You leave it, you just want

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Speaker 1: to come back, You're still hungry for it, you want

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Speaker 1: to get back into it.

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Speaker 5: A little bit like that.

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Speaker 1: Well, Bill, it's great to talk to you. The Truth

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Speaker 1: about China is in all good bookstores today. Bill Burtles,

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Speaker 1: thank you for joining us.

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Speaker 5: Ananda Jones, thank you, Thank you, Bill Jonesy and Amanda's

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Speaker 5: generation