Australian journalist Cheng Lei has warned Australians interested in travelling to China to be aware of risks around national security but also did not rule out going back to the nation where she was incarcerated for three years.
Key points:
- Cheng Lei says Australia needs to take a nuanced approach to its relations with China
- Cheng told Q+A that Australians needed to be wary of China’s national security laws
- Kalarie Man Todd Fernando said the Voice’s Yes campaign failed to listen to Australian voters when they wanted more information
Cheng, who was a presenter at the Chinese state-owned English language broadcaster CGTN, was taken into custody in August 2020, before being released and returned to Australia earlier this year.
Cheng was charged with illegally supplying state secrets to foreign organisations after being surveilled for four months and previously told ABC’s 7.30 her incarceration involved “a sophisticated form of torture”.
During Q+A, 8,100 people voted in a social media poll on whether they would feel comfortable visiting China — 55 per cent said no.
Asked for her thoughts, Cheng warned Australians to be very vigilant of China’s expanding national security laws if they chose to visit.
“Would people believe me if I said they should,” Cheng quipped before getting serious and giving her advice to Australians.
“China is a very big country, but the China of now, I think, is different to, say, the China I went to in 2000, and then the subsequent decade,” she said.
“I think you have to figure out what to be mindful of.
“Right now I’m super wary of anything purporting to be protecting … national security.
“It’s just such a blanket term and I don’t want naive people going there. If you are going there [be] fully educated about the risks.”
Asked if she would ever return to China by Q+A host Patricia Karvelas, Cheng, who said she is banned from applying for a visa for 10 years, left the door open even if she fired off a line that might raise the ire of Chinese officials.
“Never say never, but right now I’m not allowed … and if people want to improve their Mandarin, they could go to Taiwan.”
‘Kowtow, get sweeties’
Tensions in the Asia Pacific region are still high in regards to Chinese ambitions throughout Asia and specifically the South China Sea.
However trade and diplomatic tensions with Australia are considered to be thawing after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese became the first Australian leader to visit China since Malcolm Turnbull in 2016.
Still, the geopolitical climate is testy with Australia, a staunch all of the United States, a nation at odds with China walking a diplomatic tightrope.
Cheng said the key to managing that relationship was statecraft but also understanding China and the pressures placed upon President Xi Jinping, who US President Joe Biden, not for the first time, called a “dictator” just weeks ago.
“I’m for nuanced statecraft, because having been brought up in China … and also reading a lot of Chinese history while in incarceration, you get a feeling of where China is coming from,” Cheng said.
“It’s super tetchy because it has to govern 1.4 billion people.
“It feels it’s under attack both from within and without.
“It wants to go and go back and reclaim that top dog spot that it lost probably after the Tang dynasty over 1,000 years ago, and to do that, it needs to feel powerful, and that’s where the defence side comes in.
“It [also] needs to feel benevolent so if you play nice, if you kowtow, you’ll get sweeties.”
Asked if she thought the prime minister should have been more direct with Mr Xi over the recent sonar incident involving the Australian military, Cheng said because of China’s desire to save face the discussion had to be “delicate”.
‘We failed to listen to voters’ on Voice
While Australia’s relationship with China came under the microscope, so did the Voice referendum as Kalarie man and outgoing Victorian commissioner for LGBTIQA+ Communities Todd Fernando gave a powerful account of how he felt after the No vote.
And while he said it left him feeling numb he laid a large portion of the blame for the referendum’s failure on those in the Yes camp for not acknowledging that Australian voters wanted more information on the issue.
“Onto the campaign … there was a moment where Australian voters started asking for details and we had the audacity to be like, ‘racist!'” Mr Fernando said.
“The irony here is that we lost a Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice to Parliament because we failed to listen to the voter, and that’s got to sit on not just Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, those who voted ‘yes’ or those who voted ‘no’, but all of us.
“We missed a genuine opportunity to walk together and that’s very sad.”
On that sadness, Mr Fernando gave a personal account of what he went through and the raw emotions on October 14 and the day after where he said he failed to venture outside his house.
“I was wearing an ‘always was, always will be’ Aboriginal jumper, I think we’ve all seen them. I looked in the mirror and I took it off,” he said of referendum day.
“I didn’t want to be identified in the line.
“It was the first time in Australia where I voted and I was like, ‘I just want to disappear. I don’t want anybody to know who or what I am’.
“I got home feeling a bit down from that experience, and then a friend texted me later that evening and saying, ‘I’m sorry’. I didn’t have the TV on, I didn’t have the radio on, and that was how I found out.
“I felt numbness for the very first time in my life.
“I walked around in my apartment shell-shocked for about three or four hours.
“I couldn’t form a word, I couldn’t form a sentence.
“I couldn’t understand what had just happened, and over the next four days, I remained in that apartment. I didn’t want to leave the door — like, I didn’t want to go outside.”
He said many of his Indigenous friends had similar experiences and felt “utterly rejected”.
However Cheng, who was back for the referendum, said despite the result she saw a different and more accepting Australia.
“When I came back, I discovered that I felt it (Australia) was more inclusive,” she said.
“So, to me, I just think we stop whingeing and start fixing.”