When Australian citizen Yang Hengjun was given a suspended death sentence, last week, by a Beijing court, the Australian government recoiled, as though slapped.

The details of the espionage that Yang has been accused of committing remain secret. But the ripple effect that this harrowing conviction is having on the relationship between Australia and China, is beginning to emerge.

Today, North Asia correspondent Eryk Bagshaw on the tightrope that the Albanese government now has to walk, in order to fight China’s efforts at coercion, while struggling to free one of its own citizens.