Book review: Correspondent's account highlights mystery of explusion from Shanghai

Reporter's forced exit from the country raises key questions about deterioration of Sino-Australian ties

Michael Smith's new book, "The Last Correspondent: Dispatches from the Frontline of Xi's New China," is an important contribution to a divisive, and damaging, debate in Australia. (Nikkei Asia montage; source photo by William Hui)

COLLEEN RYAN, Contributing writer

June 6, 2021 08:00 JST

SYDNEY -- It was well after midnight when the pounding began on Mike Smith's front door. Seven members of China's Public Security Bureau demanded access to his lane house in Shanghai's French Concession district. It was September 2020.

Smith knew he was in trouble. Just a month earlier, Australian journalist Cheng Lei had disappeared from her home in Beijing. And three days earlier the Australian government had revealed the news that her friends and family had feared -- the prominent television anchor was in detention. She is still in jail.