Will Glasgow’s report from Beijing in the Weekend Australian of 24/25 August is cause for celebration. Since the last Australian journalist left China four years ago, reports on this most important neighbour and on matters of concern to both countries have been either second-hand or coming from non-Australian sources.

Although it is ironic that the first correspondent to return represents the Murdoch press that has been strongly aligned with the conservative side of American and Australian politics, one hopes that other Australian newspaper, radio and television media organisations will soon have their own representatives in China.

Glasgow had returned to Australia from Beijing in 2020, to meet his wife and to make arrangements for the couple to move to China, when he was contacted by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and advised not to do so. Perhaps this was not surprising. The year 2020 marked a new low point in bilateral relations. In April that year, Prime Minister Scott Morrison called for an independent inquiry into the origin of the Covid-19 virus. In June, Australian security intelligence agents raided the homes of four journalists working for the Xinhua News Agency and China Media Group. In August, Cheng Lei, an Australian journalist working for the state-run China Global Television Network in Beijing, was detained and subsequently imprisoned. In September, the Australian........

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