Chinese officials appear to have excluded a formerly jailed journalist from view of the cameras during an event between Chinese Premier Li Qiang and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in Canberra.
Cheng Lei, who was imprisoned by Beijing for three years, later said she believed two embassy officials had stood in front of her to prevent her from “saying something” or “doing something” that they thought would “look bad ‘.
Li’s visit – the first by a Chinese prime minister since 2017 – is seen as another step in thawing tensions between the two nations after a series of disputes.
Both he and Mr Albanese said bilateral talks have been constructive so far.
When asked if he saw Ms Cheng being blocked on Monday, Mr Albanese said he “didn’t know” there was a problem but that “it’s important that people can participate fully”.
“That is what should be happening in this building and anywhere else in Australia,” he added.
Ms Cheng, who now works as a journalist for Sky News Australia, said she was sitting in a room allocated to media representatives when the two officials “went to great lengths to block me from the cameras and flank me”.
Footage showed Australian officials attempting to intervene as Ms Cheng took pictures of the incident with her phone.
The 49-year-old was working as a business reporter for China’s English-language state television channel CGTN when she was arrested in August 2020 and charged with “illegally providing state secrets abroad.”
She was tried in secret and her charges were never made public before her surprise release last October.
Her detention and that of a fellow countryman still in custody, democracy blogger Yang Hengjun, strained ties between Beijing and Canberra.
When Albanese took office in 2022, he promised to improve relations and end a diplomatic hiatus caused by several testy incidents during the pandemic. These include back-and-forth accusations of foreign interference and Chinese sanctions on a range of Australian goods.
On Monday, Li said he hoped to help build a “more mature, stable and fruitful comprehensive strategic partnership.”
Mr Albanese said the two had made progress on key issues such as “improving military-to-military communications to prevent incidents”.
Several other cooperation documents related to business, education and climate change were also signed.
China will now add Australia to its visa waiver program to increase trade and tourism between the two countries.
Last year, Mr Albanese became the first Australian leader to visit China since 2016, hailing “significant progress” in relations after talks with President Xi Jinping.
