Cheng Lei: Australian journalist released from China after three years of detention

Mother of two was detained in August 2020 and booked under vague espionage charges

Australian journalist Cheng Lei has returned home and reunited with her family after three years in detention in China, prime minister Anthony Albanese said.

“We are pleased to confirm that Australian citizen Ms Cheng Lei has arrived safely home in Australia and has been reunited with her family,” Mr Albanese said in a statement.

“Her return will be warmly welcomed not just by her family and friends but by all Australians,” he said.

The 48-year-old worked for the international department of China’s state broadcaster CCTV and was held under murky espionage charges since August 2020. Mr Albanese suggested that she had recently been sentenced after she was convicted in a closed-court trial last year on national security charges.

China’s state security ministry said on Wednesday that it deported the Australian journalist after she served a full sentence.

Her return comes ahead of Mr Albanese’s planned visit to Beijing this year on a date yet to be announced. His government has been lobbying extensively for the release of Ms Cheng and another Chinese-Australian held in China since 2019, Yang Hengjun.

Ms Cheng was detained at a time when the bilateral ties between Australia and China were severely strained over human rights, trade disputes and responses to the Covid pandemic.

But relations between the countries have improved since Mr Albanese’s centre-left Labour Party was elected after nine years of conservative rule. Beijing has lifted several official and unofficial trade barriers on Australian exports.

“Her return brings an end to a very difficult few years for Ms Cheng and her family,” Mr Albanese said, adding that the authorities have raised concerns about the rights of Mr Yang as well.

Australian foreign minister Penny Wong speaking with journalist Cheng Lei upon her arrival at the airport in Melbourne (Handout)

“Her matter was concluded through the legal processes in China,” Mr Albanese said. “We continue to advocate for Dr Yang’s interests, rights and wellbeing with Chinese authorities at all levels.”

Mr Yang, a 58-year-old writer and democracy blogger, told his family in August he fears he will die in a Beijing detention centre after being diagnosed with a kidney cyst, prompting supporters to demand his release for medical treatment. Yang has been detained in China since January 2019, when he arrived in Guangzhou from New York with his wife and teenage stepdaughter. He received a closed-door trial on an espionage charge in Beijing in May 2021 and is still awaiting a verdict.

Australian foreign minister Penny Wong meets Australian journalist Cheng Lei on arrival at Melbourne Airport in Melbourne, 11 October 2023 (Reuters)

“We sat next to each other at the G20 at a formal dinner as well. It was an opportunity in a less formal way to be able to have discussions and dialogue,” he said. “Dialogue is always a good idea. Even with people who you have disagreements with.”

Mr Albanese also requested the media to “respect” Ms Cheng’s privacy and that of her family “as she adjusts to what has obviously been a very difficult and traumatic period for her in her life.”

Earlier in a letter to the Australian public, on the three-year anniversary of her detention, she shared the detention conditions including being able to stand in the sunlight for just 10 hours a year.

“I relive every bushwalk, river, lake, beach with swims and picnics and psychedelic sunsets, sky that is lit up with stars, and the silent and secret symphony of the bush,” Ms Cheng said, in the letter shared by her partner, Nick Coyle.

She hasn’t seen a tree since she was detained, she wrote, and she misses the sun.

“In my cell, the sunlight shines through the window but I can stand in it for only 10 hours a year.”

Additional reporting by agencies