Aussie journalist Cheng Lei has returned home after Chinese detention

An emotional hug and a phone call from Anthony Albanese welcomed Australian journalist Cheng Lei back to home soil after more than three years in a Chinese prison. Get the latest details and watch documentary series Disappeared: The Cheng Lei Story.

An emotional hug and a phone call from Anthony Albanese welcomed Australian journalist Cheng Lei back to home soil after more than three years in a Chinese prison.

“Hello Prime Minister, what an honour,” Ms Cheng said as she spoke to Mr Albanese over the phone shortly after arriving in Melbourne on Wednesday.

“I’m so pleased to be able to talk to you,” the Prime Minister said.

Ms Cheng told Mr Albanese it was because of him and the team at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade that she had been able to make it to Australia “in one piece”.

Ms Cheng was welcomed to Australia in person by Foreign Minister Penny Wong.

Cheng Lei with Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Australian ambassador to Beijing Graham Fletcher. Picture: Clare Armstrong

“Thank you so much, you don’t know how much your letters and your messages have helped me,” Ms Cheng said.

“It’s very good to see you,” Ms Wong told Ms Cheng after the pair shared an emotional hug.

Ms Cheng Lei then released a joy-filled thank you letter to Australians.

“Tight hugs, teary screams, holding my kids in the spring sunshine. Trees shimmy from the breeze. I can see the entirety of the sky now! Thank you Aussies,” she said in the statement, released on her behalf by her partner Nick Coyle.

On the day, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese merely revealed that he had welcomed Ms Lei home.

“We ask that her privacy and that of her family be respected,” he said in a press conference in Melbourne.

“(She) has been reunited with her two children and her family. She was met at the airport by the Foreign Minister Penny Wong.”

Cheng Lei was snuck out of China on a commercial flight to Melbourne, it can be revealed, accompanied by Australian ambassador to Beijing Graham Fletcher.

Australian journalist Cheng Lei.

It is understood that her partner, Nick Coyle, flew to Melbourne today from Papua New Guinea to be reunited with her.

Mr Albanese said her release to Australia follows the end of judicial processes in China.

“This is something that we have advocated for a long period of time and I pay tribute to all who have made representations (for her),” he said.

“I was pleased to meet with President Xi on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Bali last November.”

Cheng Lei and Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong at Tullamarine Airport, Melbourne on Wednesday afternoon.

In powerful photos released by the government Wednesday afternoon documenting her return, an emotional Ms Lei is seen hugging Foreign Minister Penny Wong and meeting with Australian ambassador to China Graham Fletcher.

Mr Graham Fletcher was part of the team who worked publicly and behind the scenes to secure her release.

Ms Cheng was all smiles as she sat with Ms Wong at the airport discussing her journey from a prison cell to freedom in Australia.

Cheng Lei and Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong at Tullamarine Airport, Melbourne on Wednesday afternoon.

Ms Wong also watched on as Cheng called loved ones with the good news of her release and safe return to Australia.

Ms Lei was held captive in a Chinese prison since 2020, leaving behind her two young children and her partner in Australia.

Australian academic Yang Hengjun remains captive in China.

“When I spoke with her she was delighted to be back in Melbourne,” Mr Albanese said.

“We continue to advocate for Dr Yang’s rights, interests and wellbeing.”.
Supporters of Mr Yang welcomed news of Ms Cheng’s release.

But a friend close to Mr Yang said there remained no sign his case was improving.

The deadline for delivering a verdict for Mr Yang was recently extended to January next year, leaving him in legal limbo as what his supporters describe as an “Australian political prisoner in China”.
His friend said Mr Yang’s kidney health concerns remain serious and there had been no positive response to requests for transparency or treatment.

Cheng Lei joy to be home was evident.

Mr Albanese reiterated that he will visit China this year — a sign the relationship between the two nations is thawing.

“It will be this year. We are finalising those details. My diary is often quite a complex exercise and we will find a mutually agreeable time to confirm and we will travel there and that will be a good thing,” he said.

Australian Chinese Journalist Cheng Lei has worked as a television anchor in Europe.

“That engagement is a good thing, dialogue is a good thing to occur.”

Opposition home affairs spokesman Senator James Paterson said it was wonderful news that Cheng Lei had finally been freed and could now be reunited with her family, “who she has been cruelly kept apart from for more than three years”.

“We continue to hope for the freedom of Yang Hengjun, who remains unjustly detained in China,” he said.
Opposition leader Peter Dutton and Coalition foreign affairs spokesman Simon Birmingham thanked everyone who had “worked tirelessly” for years on Ms Cheng’s case.

But they said deep concerns remained for Dr Yang Hengjun who remains in Chinese detention and urged the Albanese Government to use “all available diplomatic means to equally secure his return and to ensure his wellbeing”.

Cheng Lei has been separated from her two young children for years.

“Particular acknowledgment is owed to Australia’s Ambassador to China, Graham Fletcher, along with many DFAT officers and consular officials,” the pair said in a joint statement.

“We also acknowledge the government’s efforts to continue the work of former foreign minister Marise Payne to secure Ms Cheng’s release and their provision of regular confidential briefings to the Opposition on the situation.”

The release of Ms Cheng was welcomed as a moment of “great relief and joy” for her children and partner Nick Coyle.

“After three years of uncertainty, secrecy and zero transparency we are thankful this painful episode for Ms Cheng and her family has come to a welcome end.”

“A lot of people will try to take credit for this, but none of this would have happened without the work of Penny Wong,” said Cheng Lei’s friend and supporter, Sky News Australia US correspondent Anneliese Nielsen.

“We are all so completely relieved, we worried this day would never come.”

Goldstein MP and former ABC journalist Zoe Daniel said she was “extremely relieved” that Ms Lei was back in Melbourne after being released by Chinese authorities.

“I wish Lei the best of health, recovery and reunion with her children,” Ms Daniel wrote on Twitter.

Ms Lei, a Chinese-Australian television journalist, had spent three years imprisoned in China’s secretive prison system on charges that were never fully made clear but were believed to involve sharing state secrets overseas.

In August, 2020, she disappeared from her Beijing apartment.

The Beijing apartment she disappeared from.

She was arrested and taken to jail.

In March, 2022, she faced a closed trial on charges that were never revealed in a case whose verdict was never publicly finalised.

Last year, The Daily Telegraph released exclusive details of her harrowing imprisonment, which included six months in a “black jail” controlled by the secretive Chinese Ministry of State Security.

According to reports filed by officials with the Australian embassy, Ms Lei was only allowed one thirty minute visit with consular officials a month, conducted by video conference, and sometimes while restrained in a special chair with a wooden board holding her arms down and in place.

Despite the brutal conditions that included poor food and little exercise, consular reports revealed that Ms Lei used her time in prison to teach her cellmates English using everything from Shakespeare to Desperate Housewives.

An image sent to Cheng Lei by one of her children.

On Australia Day she would quietly hum Advance Australia Fair and read Peter Carey’s book about Ned Kelly to be reminded of “quintessentially Australian characteristics” like mateship and a fair go.

The Daily Telegraph understands that Ms Lei’s case had been raised a number of times with Chinese officials by the Australian government.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong raised the matter with her Chinese counterpart at a bilateral meeting in July, 2022, in Bali, but few specifics were available at the time.

In August, Ms Wong issued a further statement marking the three years since her captivity.