Cheng disappeared, after the cold relationship with China

Australia no longer has correspondents in China. The last two, Michael Smith and Bill Birtles, left the country on Tuesday after being visited by Chinese security police.

Among other things, the police asked questions about Cheng Lei. She is also an Australian citizen, but initially held a much more vulnerable position than her colleagues who worked for the Australian media.

Cheng Lei, 45, worked for GCTN, the English channel of Chinese state CCTV. And she herself was born in China, to Chinese parents, who emigrated to Australia in the 1980s.

She has been missing since mid-August. It disappeared into the dark hole that is usually China’s legal system.

“Other nations that have something unspoken about China should take note of what is happening,” former China correspondent Richard McGregor told the New York Times.

– If bilateral relations deteriorate, the citizens of a country themselves run the risk of ending up in the line of fire as well.

The Australian government currently does not want to see any connection between Cheng Lei’s disappearance and the clearly deteriorated relations between Australia and China. China commented on his disappearance for the first time on Tuesday. He is suspected of having “damaged China’s national security.”

It is clear that in recent years Australia has oriented itself in a much more critical line with China. This is despite the country’s trade dependence on China. Australia exports, among other things, large quantities of iron ore there.

Australia, for example, was the first country to prevent China’s Huawei from expanding its 5G network. Australia has also tightened legislation against foreign political interference, read in Chinese.

And Beijing’s leaders reacted very badly when Australia took the initiative and launched an international investigation into how the coronavirus began to spread from China.

One of the last things Bill Birtles reported on Australian ABC was that Cheng Lei was taken into the custody of RSDL, which is English and means “residential surveillance in a designated place.”

These are facilities where China’s security apparatus is located for sensitive prisoners, including foreigners. They can sit there for months without contact with their surroundings or their family. They can count on daily interrogations.

It is in that place where the Swede Gui Minhai was detained before receiving his sentence. Swedish human rights activist Peter Dahlin was also detained in such a room with mattress walls in 2016 before being released after he was forced to make a confession in front of Chinese television cameras about his “crimes”.

Cheng Lei was a big name in CGTN. He had worked there since 2013 and was previously a correspondent for American CNBC in China.

He was primarily involved in business monitoring and interviewed CEOs of some of the largest companies in the world. She also had her own cooking show. On Twitter, she described herself as “a passionate storyteller of Chinese history.”

But for a few weeks, his name has been removed from the CGTN website. It’s like it never existed. Her children live in Australia, but the family has had no contact with her since she disappeared.

However, Australian diplomats were able to reach her once last week, via video. Her arrest has surprised her friend, former Australian Ambassador to China Geoff Raby. This is what he tells the BBC:

– She used to respond to foreign debaters who she said commented on China without understanding the situation in China. It’s hard to imagine what she could have done to make this happen.

– But it is naive to think that this has nothing to do with bilateral relations.

Another Australian citizen of Chinese origin was arrested in January 2019 and has been convicted of espionage. The same fate suffered two Canadian citizens, a former diplomat and a businessman.

They were arrested shortly after Canada placed Huawei’s boss, Meng Wanzhou, under house arrest pending an investigation into her extradition to the United States. She is still in Canada. China is deeply critical of this. Canada’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs warns its citizens about traveling to China.

It may be many weeks or months before the outside world discovers the fate that awaits Cheng Lei. If it is brought to justice, in practice it is executed by it. In a Chinese court, more than 99 percent of cases end with a conviction.

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