China frees Australian reporter after three years

SYDNEY: China has released Australian journalist Cheng Lei after more than three years in detention, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced on Wednesday, adding she was now back in Melbourne.

“The Australian people very much wanted to see Cheng Lei reunited with her young kids,” Albanese said, adding that the reporter was “delighted” to be back home.

Cheng, a former anchor for Chinese state broadcaster CGTN, had been detained since August 2020 but was only formally arrested in February 2021.

She was formally charged with “supplying state secrets overseas” but no further details were given.

Cheng was tried behind closed doors, with even Australia’s ambassador to China blocked from entering the court to observe proceedings.

She had written about bleak prison conditions in a candid note dictated to Australian officials from jail and released in August.

“I miss the sun,” read the message, described as a “love letter” to Australia.

“In my cell, the sunlight shines through the window but I can stand in it for only 10 hours a year.”

Albanese said she had been released after the “completion of legal processes in China”.

Cheng’s case had been a serious point of friction between Canberra and Beijing.

Albanese said that Cheng’s release would facilitate his visit to China at some point this year.

Australia-China relations had been in deep freeze after the Australian government barred Chinese tech firm Huawei from lucrative contracts and pushed back against Chinese influence campaigns in Australia.

China was also furious at Canberra’s calls for an investigation into the origins of the Covid-19 outbreak that killed millions and plunged the world’s economy into a multi-year crisis.

In retaliation, China introduced a swathe of de facto sanctions against Australian products, measures that have been slowly unwound as relations thaw.