James Morrow: Jailed journalist Cheng Lei’s release would be the ultimate relationship reset

China holds all the cards when it comes to Cheng Lei - all the more reason for Beijing to release her on compassionate grounds to help reset the Australia relationship, writes James Morrow.

Cheng Lei is not just another Australian caught up in the machinery of another nation’s justice system.

She is also someone who carries much of the weight of the fraught relationship between China and Australia on her already overburdened shoulders.

When Cheng Lei was arrested in August two years ago, the world was maybe six months into the “this is real” phase of the Covid pandemic.

No one is quite sure exactly why or on what grounds Cheng Lei was targeted but since at least April of 2020 then prime minister Scott Morrison had been demanding, quite properly, that China open its books to an independent inquiry on the source of the outbreak.

Whether or not it was in retaliation for this, or because of some other perceived slight, the issue for the two nations is how to end Cheng Lei’s suffering – and turn a corner on at least this phase of tense relations between the two nations.

Australian Chinese Journalist Cheng Lei, pictured with her kids, is accused of leaking state secrets. Her family has broken their silence on her imprisonment.

In this, China holds all the cards, as it does with her fellow detainee Yang Hengjun.

I spoke with former prime minister John Howard recently about Cheng Lei’s plight, and he said that in situations like this there is only so much a nation like Australia can do.

Former prime minister John Howard says there’s only so much Australia can do. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

Foreign Minister Penny Wong raised the matter with her Chinese counterpart at a meeting in Bali in July but has been naturally guarded in what she can and cannot say about the cases of either Cheng Lei or Yang Hengjun.

In preparing Disappeared: The Cheng Lei Story, I also interviewed Dr Chongyi Feng, a Sydney academic who was himself detained for a week and prevented from returning to Australia by Chinese officials after he was seen speaking to human rights lawyers on the mainland.

UTS Professor Chongyi Feng was previously detained in China. Dr Feng has previously criticised Beijing's growing influence in Australia, particularly within Australia's Chinese-language media, and its crackdown on dissenters in China. Picture: Jenny Evans

He made the point that Chinese president Xi Jinping was focusing all his efforts on consolidating power ahead of the 20th Chinese Communist Party Congress alter this year and that no one should get their hopes up before then.

Dr Feng did however say that after that there might be the possibility for a change in tack.

The hope is slim but still flickering that China might at some point release these prisoners back to Australia, say they have served their time, and present it as a face-saving act of generosity.

It is, to be sure, a slim hope, but for the families of Cheng Lei and Yang Hengjun, it’s all they have to hang on to.