The release from detention and the return to Australia of Cheng Lei was both unexpected and welcome.
Ever since the detention and arrest of the 48-year-old television journalist, Australian governments and embassy officials endeavoured to secure her release.
It is a credit to the government and our returning ambassador in Beijing, Graham Fletcher, that they have finally succeeded.
Ms. Cheng was detained in August 2020, “formally” arrested in February 2021, and charged with providing state secrets to foreign organisations, then her secret trial was repeatedly delayed. But she has now been released following pressure on the communist regime.
The charges against Ms. Cheng, which she denied, were unclear, the proceedings were secretive and the verdict was never publicly released. Such is the nature of Beijing’s so-called “rule of law!”
For three years, the business reporter was held in detention, only seeing daylight for 10 hours a year.
No wonder she spoke of “holding her kids in the spring sunshine” and seeing “the entirety of the sky” on her return to Australia.
Ms. Cheng was used as a political hostage by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). It was during the disputes about trade and Australia’s criticism of the regime’s refusal to cooperate with an investigation into the release of the COVID-19 virus that she was detained.
Her usefulness as a political hostage is now diminished. Beijing realises that it requires Australian exports and doesn’t want Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to postpone or cancel his planned visit to China this year.
Trail of Foreign Hostages
Foreigners can find themselves dragged off by China’s state security officials, as two Canadians, Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig experienced when detained for two and a half years as hostages in retaliation for charges against the Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou.They were fortunate, being released after Ms. Meng returned to China from Canada where she was fighting extradition to the U.S., after she admitted involvement in unlawful payments to businesses in Iran.
Ms. Meng’s return was feted on Chinese television without mentioning her admissions to U.S. prosecutors. Since 2015, 16 Japanese citizens have been detained on vague charges including “espionage.”
No one travelling to China is safe, including journalists, as Ms. Cheng discovered.
Chinese national Haze Fan of Bloomberg has also been detained for over a year for alleged involvement in state security cases, a vague description used by the regime to arrest individuals.
The audacity of the regime was on display during the Olympics when a Dutch journalist was dragged off-air during the Games opening ceremony in Beijing. The live television footage showed several security officials surrounding the journalist, Sjoerd den Daas, for the Dutch public broadcaster NOS before one of them grabbed him from behind.
This was just an isolated event protested by the compromised International Olympic Committee, despite reports of other incidents of harassment!
Foreign journalists are an endangered species in China. The Foreign Correspondents Club of China has reported physical assaults, hacking, online trolling, and visa denials. Many have left the country.
The regime has also commenced denying departure from China by some visitors to the country, leaving business persons and others stranded there. New vague national security laws that have been introduced can be used arbitrarily against anyone.
What Law?
The fact is that there is no independent judiciary in China. Chinese leader Xi Jinping has repeatedly said that judges, lawyers, legal scholars, and law students must adhere to the CCP’s doctrines and directions.The stark reality was described by a former CCP judge in an interview published in Kay Rubacek’s “Who are China’s walking dead,” a series of personal accounts by Chinese officials who have fled the regime.
“The CCP has the final say on everything. The government must obey the CCP, the court must obey the CCP, the Congress must obey the CCP, enterprises, civic organisations must obey the CCP. The CCP has presence and influence in every system and every corner. The CCP has monopolised all the power of this nation,” said one former official.
Significantly he revealed that CCP committees “work alongside the court.”
“The committee may give a directive, an opinion or even order the court to handle the case in a certain way. The court is not allowed to comply with the law in that instance. The regime’s authority is above the law,” the former judge said.
No doubt Cheng Lei will tell her story in the coming weeks and months.
In the meantime, another Australian, the writer Yang Hengjun, remains imprisoned in China after being charged with espionage. He claims to have been tortured. He too was the subject of a secret trial.
We can celebrate the release of Cheng Lei, but the episode again reveals that the CCP remains a capricious totalitarian regime.
