Chinese-born Australian journalist Cheng Lei attends a signing ceremony by Premier Li Qiang and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at the Australian Parliament House in Canberra, Australia on June 17, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Australia voiced concern on June 18 about the “ham-fisted” actions of two Chinese diplomats at a media event, tarnishing a highly touted visit in which Premier Li Qiang has sought to celebrate trade and friendship.

China’s second-most powerful man has posed in front of giant pandas, warmly toasted Australian wine, and highlighted the need to peacefully work through “differences” during his rare trip to Australia.

But the carefully choreographed tour briefly unravelled during a signing ceremony inside Australia’s parliament on Monday, when two Chinese diplomats appeared to shadow high-profile Australian journalist Cheng Lei.

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Ms. Cheng returned to Australia in October last year after three years detained in China on opaque spying charges and has spoken unflinchingly of her bleak prison conditions.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese criticised the “ham-fisted” behaviour, saying Australia had “followed up with the Chinese embassy to express our concern”.

“When you look at the footage, it was a pretty clumsy attempt, frankly, by a couple of people to stand in between where the cameras were and where Cheng Lei was sitting,” he told national broadcaster ABC.

“And Australian officials intervened, as they should have, to ask the Chinese officials who were there at the press conference to move.”

Footage showed two Chinese diplomats hovering next to a seated Ms. Cheng, repeatedly ignoring requests to move from animated Australian officials.

Ms. Cheng said they “went to great lengths to block me from the cameras”.

“And I’m guessing that’s to prevent me from saying something or doing something that they think would be a bad look,” she told Sky News Australia.

“But that itself is a bad look.”

Mr. Albanese had told Mr. Li in closed-door talks just hours earlier that “foreign interference wasn’t acceptable in Australia’s political system”.

Lingering ‘differences’

The highest-ranking Chinese official to visit Australia since 2017, Mr. Li’s visit shows the growing rapprochement between Beijing and Canberra after a years-long trade dispute.

“Of course, we all know that in the past few years, our bilateral relations also encountered some difficulties and twists and turns,” Mr. Li said before departing Australia on Tuesday afternoon.

“But thanks to the joint efforts of both sides, the bilateral relations have been put back on the right track.”

Asked about the Cheng Lei incident and Mr. Albanese’s remarks on Tuesday, Beijing’s foreign ministry spokesman said he was “not aware of the specific situation you mentioned”.

“But I can tell you that as far as I know, the ninth China-Australia Annual Prime Ministers’ Meeting and other activities have been held smoothly and achieved positive results,” Lin Jian told a regular news briefing.

Premier Li ended his visit with a tour of a Chinese-controlled lithium refiner in Western Australia, a sign of his country’s vast appetite for Australia’s critical minerals.

Australia extracts 52% of the world’s lithium, the vast majority of it exported as ore to China for refining and use in batteries.

It is a crucial ingredient in China’s world-dominant electric vehicle industry.

China’s involvement in the country’s critical mineral industry is sensitive because of its dominance of global supply chains.

Despite the goodwill on show, both sides have acknowledged lingering “differences” — a nod to diplomatic jostling in the Pacific.

“We won’t always agree, and the points in which we disagree won’t simply disappear if we leave them in silence,” Mr. Albanese said.

Australia accused China last month of “unsafe and unprofessional” conduct after one of its warplanes allegedly fired flares in the path of a naval helicopter over the Yellow Sea.

It also said late last year a Chinese destroyer blasted Australian navy divers with dangerous sonar pulses.

Australian journalist Cheng Lei smiles after she arrives at Tullamarine Airport in Melbourne on Wednesday October 11, 2023.
| Photo Credit: AP

Australian journalist Cheng Lei says she spent more than three years in detention in China for breaking an embargo with a television broadcast on a state-run TV network.

Ms. Cheng‘s first television interview since she was freed was broadcast in Australia on Tuesday almost a week after she returned to her mother and two children, aged 11 and 14, in the city of Melbourne.

The Chinese-born 48-year-old was an English-language anchor for state-run China Global Television Network in Beijing when she was detained in August 2020.

She said her offense was breaking a government-imposed embargo by a few minutes following a briefing by officials.

Her treatment in custody was designed to “drive home that point that in China that is a big sin,” Ms. Cheng told Sky News Australia. “That you have hurt the motherland and that the state’s authority has been eroded because of you.”

“What seems innocuous to us here is — I’m sure it’s not limited to embargoes, but many other things — are not in China, especially (because) I’m given to understand that the gambit of state security is widening,” she said.

Ms. Cheng did not give details about the embargo breach.

Her account differs from the crime outlined by China’s Ministry of State Security last week.

The Ministry said Ms. Cheng was approached by a foreign organisation in May 2020 and provided them 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 organisation or say what the secrets were.

A Beijing court convicted her of illegally providing state secrets abroad and she was sentenced to two years and 11 months, the statement said. She was deported after the sentencing because of the time she had already spent in detention.

Observers suspect the real reason Ms. Cheng was released was persistent lobbying from the Australian government and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s planned trip to China this year on a date yet to be set.

Ms. Cheng said that a visit to a toilet at the court on the morning before she was sentenced was the first time in more than three years that she had sat on a toilet or seen her reflection in a mirror.

Her commercial airline flight from Beijing to Melbourne was the first time she had slept in darkness in three years because the lights were always left on at night in the detention facilities.

Ms. Cheng migrated to Australia with her parents at age 10. She said she struggles to answer when asked how she has been since her return.

“Sometimes I fell like an invalid, like a newborn and very fragile,” Ms. Cheng said. “And other times I feel like I could fly and I want to embrace everything and I enjoy everything so intensely and savor it.”