‘Tight hugs, teary screams’: Cheng Lei’s China nightmare ends

The end to her incarceration on trumped-up national security charges was achieved by quiet diplomacy which allowed the Chinese government to save face by claiming she had pleaded guilty and served out her sentence.

It was the end of a three-year nightmare for Cheng, 48, and her family.

She was detained by China’s Ministry of State Security while heading to work in Beijing early on August 13, 2020. There was no indication previously that Cheng, a respected business journalist, might be in trouble with the authorities.

Weeks before she disappeared, she posted photos on social media of her young son and daughter who had been sent to stay with relatives in Australia during the uncertain early months of the COVID-19 pandemic.

While her detention was not made public until two weeks after she was taken, friends and colleagues were growing increasingly concerned when she stopped responding to messages and phone calls.

I first heard the news when my editors phoned me to say the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) had advised them to pull me out of China. At the same time, the then Foreign Minister Marise Payne was briefing the media about her situation.

News of Cheng’s detention sent shockwaves through diplomatic and media circles in China as well as back in Australia. It was seen as a clear swipe at Australia and a further deterioration in a relationship with was already in turmoil. It also alarmed foreign journalists like myself who had naively believed we were immune from long-term detention, unlike local journalists in China who have no protection.

China linked Cheng’s case with an exit ban it slapped on myself and the ABC’s China correspondent, Bill Birtles, which would prevent us leaving the country. When security police visited our homes late at night a few days later, they said we were persons of interest in a national security case.

The authorities later agreed to let us leave the country on the condition we submit to an interview with the Ministry of State Security where they asked questions about our connections to Cheng. This was farcical as I had only met her once and had nothing much to offer. Still, we were concerned that anything we said in the interview could be used to implicate Cheng, although the questions were far from probing.

Horrendous conditions

It was not clear at the time why Cheng had been detained, except that she had been accused of a national security crime. It was not until February 2021 that we learnt she was arrested on suspicion of illegally supplying state secrets overseas.

She was tried behind closed doors more than a year later in March 2022. However, a sentence was not handed down at the time which gave Beijing wriggle room to free her when it wanted.

After she landed in Australia on Wednesday, Beijing announced she had pleaded guilty and had already served out her two-year and 11-month sentence, which meant she could be deported in accordance with Chinese law.

“Unusually she had not been sentenced after she was found guilty, and I had always believed this gave the Chinese side some flexibility when they decided they wanted to move,” Geoff Raby, Australia’s former ambassador to China and a friend who wrote to Cheng each month, says. “I am so elated.”

The joy she and her family are experiencing this week though will never compensate for the nightmare of the past three years.

Cheng endured horrendous conditions at the hands of the Chinese authorities with limited contact with the outside world and the long separation from her young children. Her plight was highlighted in a letter she dictated from jail which was made public in August this year. She described a tiny prison cell which only received 10 hours of sunlight a year.

“It can take a while to accept that this (freedom) is yours, and you can embrace it. Because you spend so much time being hyper vigilant and wary of anything,” says Peter Greste, an Australian journalist who was imprisoned in Egypt for more than a year and now campaigns for media freedom, says when asked to comment on Cheng’s release.

“There are so few people around you who understand what you have been through. That can feel really isolating.”

Quiet diplomacy

A change of government in Australia and the reopening of diplomatic channels between Canberra and Beijing raised hopes for Cheng’s release, particularly as Albanese’s visit to Beijing later this year grew closer.

Cheng’s supporters, including Raby and businessman Warwick Smith, all praise Australia’s ambassador to China, Graham Fletcher, for his role in her release.

Fletcher – whose is soon leaving the post after more than four years – understands China’s diplomatic tactics better than most and keeps a cool head in a crisis, something I can testify to from personal experience.

While Cheng’s release is being hailed by business and diplomats as a positive for Australia’s relationship with China, her ordeal is a reminder of the risks facing anyone dealing with an authoritarian regime with no rule of law.