The Case of Cheng Lei

Australian journalist Cheng Lei has been in detention in China for more than 1,000 days. During this time she has been prevented from speaking to her children, now aged 11 and 14.

As is common in China, she has faced opaque legal processes. In August 2020, Cheng was placed under “Residential Surveillance at a Designated Location,” an undisclosed detention facility for those suspected of state crimes. Six months later she was formally arrested on purposely vague charges of espionage.

In March this year, a closed-door trial was held, but intriguingly there has been no verdict as yet, with scheduled dates for the verdict now having been delayed five times. If, as seems likely, Cheng’s detention has nothing to do with her conduct and everything to do with China’s relationship with Australia, a verdict may be on pause due to the reassessment of the relationship with Australia. If Beijing is pleased with Australia’s behavior, the outcome could be favorable to Cheng.

If this is the case, there is hope that Cheng could return home to be with her children. Last month saw Beijing lift its ban on Australian timber, as well as providing Australia’s trade minister, Don Farrell, with a surprise tour of the Forbidden City in Beijing. This follows on from an April agreement by Beijing to review its excessive tariff on Australian barley.

While attempts at economic coercion through product bans and tariffs are petty and often counterproductive – spurring Australia to simply diversify its trading relationships – the arbitrary detention of foreign citizens is truly concerning behavior from Beijing. It is a demonstration of the very little reverence that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has for human life. People are viewed as things to be controlled, or pawns to be used in geopolitical contests and calculations. Separating a mother from her children is of no great concern.

There are two components that drive this behavior from the CCP. The first is its authoritarianism, which obsesses over control and sees people simply as masses, not individuals. Then, as an ethnic nationalist party, the CCP believes itself to be the sole voice of all Chinese people, regardless of their citizenship or where they reside. This means that there are parallel perspectives from the CCP about someone like Cheng. As an Australian she is a useful tool to try and manipulate Canberra, but as ethnically Chinese she is also deemed to be the property of the CCP.

Product bans, excessive tariffs, and arbitrary detention are part of a system of rewards and punishments that the CCP believes to be an acceptable way for states to behave. What may now be apparent to Beijing is that Australia will simply refuse to play this game and cannot be bent to the CCP’s will. After cutting off all contact with Australian officials in recent years, Beijing is now starting to engage as a more mature state with Australia.

While Australia’s trade minister was afforded a trip to Beijing, and some special treatment, his counterpart, commerce minister, Wang Wentao, has agreed to travel to Australia soon for further discussions. Alongside this, Foreign Minister Qin Gang is also understood to be planning a visit to Australia for July. The hope in Canberra is that the tariffs on Australian barley and wine will be removed prior to these visits, so discussions can move forward and not get bogged down in issues that have soured relations over previous years.

Of priority concern for Australia should be the release of Cheng. However, unlike the situation with Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, Beijing doesn’t want something specific with its detention of Cheng, making it difficult for Australia to understand how it can secure her release in a manner that does not submit to Beijing’s bullying, but also allows Beijing to save some face.

Also of concern is the fact that China is engaged in an ongoing crackdown on foreign nationals and businesses accused of violating nebulous national security interests. It may be that Cheng was detained out of paranoia regarding information she may have obtained through her work as a journalist, and that might make it that much harder for Canberra to secure her release.

The movement toward normalizing relations between Australia and China has come from a new communications strategy from Canberra, one that Beijing finds less offensive. This is starting to produce some positive results, and hopefully this can extend to the release of Cheng. She doesn’t deserve to be a pawn in China’s geopolitical games – to have her life stolen from her. Certainly, her children don’t deserve to have their mother stolen from them. This basic human decency is something that the Chinese people would consider important, but at present the party that claims to speak for them doesn’t.