Australia "deeply disappointed" by writer's detention in China

Australia is "deeply disappointed" that Chinese-born writer Yang Hengjun had been transferred to criminal detention in China, Foreign Minister Marise Payne said in a statement on Friday.

"Formal notification was received today from Chinese authorities of his criminal detention," she said.

Yang was detained in the southern city of Guangzhou in January, while waiting for a transfer to Shanghai after flying in from New York, where he was a visiting scholar at Columbia University.