Beijing’s hostage diplomacy over Cheng Lei has to end

After three years in detention in Beijing, Australian journalist Cheng Lei has shown she has not lost her sense of humour or determination to be reunited with her family in Melbourne. In a message to the nation delivered through Australian consular officials, Ms Cheng details the hardships she has endured as well as the fondness she retains for Melbourne, where her children, aged 11 and 14, are without their mother.

Ms Cheng must be seen as a victim of China’s ruthless hostage diplomacy. While working as a television anchor on the Chinese government’s English TV channel, CGTN, she was snatched by the Chinese Ministry of State Security in August 2020, at the height of a downturn in relations between the Australian government and the Chinese Communist Party.

Ms Cheng was charged with providing state secrets to foreign organisations but very little information about her alleged crimes or details surrounding her arrest have been made public. There have been repeated delays in the judicial process and the earliest a verdict can be reached is October. But this is largely academic given the fact that almost everyone who is charged in China is found guilty. Ms Cheng’s plight must be considered in the context of Beijing’s wolf warrior diplomacy, under which there are seemingly no limits to the CCP’s international provocations.

Australians have every right to feel outraged at the treatment detailed by Ms Cheng in her message to the nation. The 48-year-old said she misses what many people take for granted – sunlight, nature and her family. Sunlight reaches into her jail cell for only 10 hours a year. Once a year, her bedding is taken into the sun to be aired. These deprivations are exaggerated by the frustrations of the Chinese legal process, the lack of access to outside visitors and consular staff, and estrangement from her family.

Ms Cheng’s partner, Nick Coyle, is correct to say it would be in everyone’s best interests in terms of the bilateral relationship between Australian and China that the case is dealt with as “expeditiously and compassionately as possible”.

Ms Cheng’s plight has been keenly watched in Australia. It has been raised by Anthony Albanese as one of the major issues that must be resolved to fully restore Sino-Australian relations. And it has been high on the agenda for consular officials regarding the timing of the Prime Minister’s planned visit to Beijing later this year.

The federal government is keen to progress a thaw in relations with the CCP. There has been some progress on the trade front with the decision by Beijing this month to remove a barley tariff and end a three-year dispute that Australia took to the World Trade Organisation. Trade sanctions still remain on other agricultural exports, including wine. Any sense that China is concerned about our attachment to proper process and the rule of law was undermined by the decision last month by Hong Kong police to offer a bounty for the arrest of Australian citizens living in Australia for what it considers to be breaches of the territory’s outrageous national security laws.

Penny Wong has emphasised our expectations of China go beyond re-establishing trade to include the release of Australian nationals detained in China and the bounty placed on Australian resident citizens. As we editorialised in July, the Albanese government is right to balance its desire for rapprochement with the CCP with a realistic appraisal of what is at stake and how the relationship must be managed. Trade and human rights remain fundamental to our values and national interest. The continued detention of Ms Cheng is a stain on the relationship. She must urgently be released and allowed to reunite with her young family.