Bill Birtles is an Australian journalist who is working for the

Australian Broadcasting Corporation The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) is the national broadcaster of Australia. It is principally funded by direct grants from the Australian Government and is administered by a government-appointed board. The ABC is a publicly-own ...

(ABC). He worked in China from 2015 to 2020, eventually leaving after the Australian embassy advised him to do so, after the detainment of

Cheng Lei Cheng Lei (; born on August 26, 1971) is a Chinese television presenter. Cheng Lei was a student in Shanghai Theater Academy in 1990s. After graduation, he was chosen as a host for ''Broken Brain'' (智力大沖浪) by Shanghainese producer Xi ...

Education

Birtles was educated at Canberra Grammar School, leaving in 2002, and subsequently studied at the

University of New South Wales The University of New South Wales (UNSW), also known as UNSW Sydney, is a public research university based in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It is one of the founding members of Group of Eight, a coalition of Australian research-intensiv ...

Career

Birtles started his career as a journalist working for

Triple J Triple J (stylised in all lowercase) is a government-funded, national Australian radio station intended to appeal to listeners of alternative music, which began broadcasting in January 1975. The station also places a greater emphasis on broad ...

. When he was 24, he started learning Mandarin, and moved to Beijing, working in a television newsroom there. Later, he worked for the ABC in Sydney and Melbourne. In 2015, Birtles moved back to Beijing, becoming the ABC's China correspondent. Significant stories that Birtles has covered include the rise of

Xi Jinping Xi Jinping ( ; ; ; born 15 June 1953) is a Chinese politician who has served as the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), and thus as the paramount leader of China, ...

, the

China–United States trade war The China–United States trade war () is an ongoing economic conflict between the People's Republic of China and the United States of America. In January 2018, U.S. President Donald Trump began setting tariffs and other trade barriers on Chin ...

, 2019-20 Hong Kong protests, early parts of the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

and the relationship between Australia and China. In August 2020,

, an Australian journalist working in China was detained by Chinese authorities without charge, prompting Australian diplomats to advise Birtles to leave China. On the night before his flight out of China, seven police officers visited his apartment to tell him he was barred from leaving China. The same happened to Michael Smith, from the Australian Financial Review. The next morning, Birtles went to the Australian embassy in Beijing. After a few days, Birtles was allowed to leave China after having an interview with Chinese authorities about Cheng Lei. Afterwards, the ABC had no correspondents in China for the first time in several decades. Birtles published a book in April 2021 about his ordeal in China, titled ''The Truth About China : Propaganda, patriotism and the search for answers''. He had said that he is open to returning to China when its relationship with Australia gets better.

Education

Career

See also

References

Further reading