Chinese authorities have formally arrested the detained Australian citizen Cheng Lei ‘on suspicion of illegally providing state secrets abroad’, prompting new calls for the journalist to be treated humanely.
Cheng, an anchor for the Chinese state-run English-language news channel China Global Television Network, has been detained in China since mid-August, but the decision to proceed with the next phase of criminal proceedings is a blow to her hopes of release.
Australian Foreign Secretary Marise Payne said the Australian government had been notified that Cheng had been formally arrested in China on Friday, about six months after she was first detained.
“Chinese authorities have announced that Cheng has been arrested for illegally providing state secrets overseas,” Payne said in a statement.
Amid the ongoing diplomatic and trade tensions between the two countries, Payne also revealed that Australian embassy officials have visited Cheng six times since her arrest, most recently on 27 January.
She said the Australian government had “expressed serious concern about the detention of Ms Cheng at senior levels, including her well-being and conditions of detention”.
Payne said Australia expects ‘basic standards of justice, procedural fairness and humane treatment to be met, in line with international standards’.
At a subsequent press conference, Payne said Australian officials would remain in close contact with the Chinese authorities on the matter and would offer ‘all possible support’ to Cheng.
“We think of Ms Cheng and her family during this difficult period,” she said.
Peter Greste, an Australian journalist who became a campaigner for freedom of the press for more than a year after his own detention in Egypt, called for Cheng to be released immediately.
“China’s record of press freedom is already very disturbing,” Greste, a spokeswoman for the Alliance for Journalists’ Freedom, said on Monday.
“In the absence of evidence, Cheng’s arrest only adds to the impression that Beijing does not care about press freedom. Her case is a clear warning to other journalists to support the government or to be arrested as well. ‘
The Chinese embassy in Canberra commented.
Cheng – who was born in China but later became an Australian citizen – worked as a news anchor on a business program on CGTN. She has been detained in China since August 13 last year.
Human rights observers have expressed concern about Cheng’s welfare, as she was initially taken as a “residential supervisor in a designated place”.
It is a form of coercive detention that allows the Chinese Ministry of Public Security and the Ministry of State Security to circumvent ordinary criminal proceedings and keep subjects in unknown places without formal arrest, indictment, trial or access to a lawyer, for up to six months.
Payne’s statement Monday is not the first time the Australian government has made public developments in the matter.
The Australian government unveiled for the first time on September 1 that Cheng was detained in Beijing – two weeks after Australia was notified.
In early September, two Australian foreign correspondents in China, ABC’s Bill Birtles and Michael Smith of the Australian Financial Review, were urgently flown home after a tense diplomatic battle.
They both left China after being questioned by the Chinese Ministry of State Security. They were told that their persons were of interest in the investigation into Cheng.
At the time, Birtles told the ABC that the episode appeared to be “a harassment of the remaining Australian journalists” and not a “real attempt to find something useful” in the case against Cheng.
Around the same time, the state media in China published details of alleged raids by Australian authorities on Chinese journalists in Australia – which date to the end of June. This episode is apparently related to an investigation into foreign interference.
On September 8, the Chinese Foreign Ministry confirmed that Cheng was being held on national security grounds, but did not provide further details.
Concerns have also been raised about the fate of Australian author dr. Yang Hengjun, who has been detained by Chinese authorities since early 2019. Yang has denied espionage allegations, saying he is “innocent and will fight to the end”.
Amid a rift in diplomatic relations, Australia updated its travel advice to China in early July to say that Chinese authorities have detained foreigners on alleged national security grounds and that Australians may be at risk of arbitrary detention.
China updated its travel advice around the same time to say that Australian law enforcement agencies “arbitrarily searched Chinese citizens and confiscated their articles”.