CANBERRA, Australia (AP) \u2014 A Chinese-born journalist credited the Australian government for her return to Australia \u201cin one piece\u201d after her three-year detention in China in an espionage case that strained bilateral ties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cheng Lei\u2019s comments broadcast on Thursday challenged Beijing\u2019s version that she was deported this week under normal judicial procedures without political considerations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The 48-year-old former Chinese state television anchor spoke to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese by phone from Melbourne Airport on Wednesday after her arrival from Beijing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHello, prime minister. It\u2019s because of you and all the team at DFAT that I\u2019m able to make it here in one piece,\u201d Cheng said in a video recording released by Australia\u2019s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Foreign Minister Penny Wong welcomed Cheng to Melbourne, where Cheng\u2019s two children, 11 and 14, have been raised by their grandmother. Wong\u2019s staff handed Cheng the phone to speak with Albanese.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Wong also took credit for Cheng\u2019s freedom, saying improved bilateral relations had paid dividends since her center-left Labor Party government was elected last year after nine years of conservative rule.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve made clear since we were elected that we wanted to stabilize our relationship with China, we wanted to engage and I think you\u2019ve seen some of the benefits of engagement,\u201d Wong said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Albanese plans to visit Beijing this year at a date yet to be set. He would become the first Australian prime minister to visit China in seven years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Albanese said he had had \u201cgood, constructive\u201d meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Qiang about Cheng\u2019s case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cheng, who was born in China and migrated to Australia with her family at age 10, had worked for China\u2019s state broadcaster CCTV. She was arrested in August 2020 when bilateral relations were plumbing new depths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
China\u2019s Ministry of State Security said Cheng provided a foreign organization with state secrets she had obtained on the job in violation of a confidentiality clause signed with her employer. A police statement did not name the organization or say what the secrets were.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A court in Beijing convicted her of illegally providing state secrets abroad and she was sentenced to two years and 11 months, the statement said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said that the Chinese judicial system tried the case \u201cin accordance with the law, fully safeguarding the rights enjoyed by the person concerned in accordance with the law.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Geoff Raby, a former Australian ambassador to China and a friend of Cheng, described China\u2019s explanation that she had been released according to law as a \u201cface-saving solution.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Albanese and Wong deserved congratulations for stabilizing the bilateral relationship and for raising Cheng\u2019s case with Chinese leaders at every opportunity, Raby said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cPersistence and constantly coming back to this issue and advocating on her behalf in private but at very senior levels … trickles down through the Chinese system and I think the result we see thankfully … yesterday is a product of all of that effort,\u201d Raby said.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) \u2014 A Chinese-born journalist credited the Australian government for her return to Australia \u201cin one piece\u201d after her three-year detention in China in an espionage case that strained bilateral ties. Cheng Lei\u2019s comments broadcast on Thursday challenged Beijing\u2019s version that she was deported this week under normal judicial procedures without political considerations. […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":7220,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[80,81,396],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asia","category-china","category-latest"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7219"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7219\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}