Sky News host Cheng Lei recalls horrifying moments leading up to her arrest in Beijing on wrongful espionage charges

Sky News AU

6 days ago

I woke feeling awful – period pain plus an infection.
I checked my phone: 5 am in Beijing – 7 am in Melbourne.
I called Mum and my kids in Melbourne.
Six months earlier, in February, Ava and Alex had gone to Australia for a two-week holiday because schools were not restarting in Beijing due to Covid.
Then China shut its borders and their return flights were cancelled.
They were stuck in Melbourne, and I was in Beijing.
I missed them terribly.
As Dire Straits sang in 'So Far Away', I was in the sun and they were in the rain.
I needed to give love and I couldn't.
I wanted to give my mum a break.
I wanted to tell the kids jokes and stories and take endless photos of them goofing off.
I wanted to be busy in the kitchen again.
And for there to be heaps of stuff on the dining table – kids' school bags, sports gear, half-finished snacks.
I wanted to be in their bedroom, wondering when they were going to finally zonk out in little puffs of sleepy breaths.
I wanted to decline dinner invitations because I was on mummy duty.
I wanted to feel like I'd done a half-decent job of parenting instead of the leaden guilt of 'What if I'd flown them back to China a week earlier before everything changed '?
'Mum, when are we coming back to Beijing? Alex doesn't listen to Grandma and is always threatening to destroy my Lego creations!' Ava sounded like what she was – a bored, annoyed preteen elder sister.
'I'm doing all I can. I've just written to an important ministry, and hope to have good news soon. I miss cooking for you kids.'
I closed my eyes as another wave of pain gripped my insides.
'Mummy's hurting. Say you love Mummy,' I said to my eight-year-old son.
'Tell her you love her,' I heard my mum say.
Alex whispered something affectionate – or did he?
Then the call ended – Mum has a habit of not saying goodbye.
I took some pills and dozed off.
Four hours later I woke up, woozy from the post-painkiller deep sleep.
I checked my phone.
The screen brimmed alarmingly with notifications.
Messages from all and sundry urged me to come to work immediately to see Mr Fan, the director of China Global Television Network (CGTN), the international division of the state-owned Chinese Central Television (CCTV) that I worked for.
Apparently, he was very interested in the new TV series I'd proposed about cooking and dining with ambassadors.
It was my brainchild and I was keen to get it off the ground.
'Why does it have to be today?' I groaned as I dragged myself out of bed.
Discomfort aside, I was excited that the head honcho was eager to talk about the show.
I showered quickly and threw on my go-to black shift dress, simple earrings and nude pumps.
A quick scan around the room – I would clear up the mess later.
There was no time for breakfast; just pin up the hair, a swipe of mascara and lipstick.
For tennis later I'd need a change of outfit and my water bottle.
All this plus my work pass went into a canvas holdall.
Heading out of the apartment building, the air was pleasantly cool – Beijing's summers end early.
It was the best time of year, 'the autumn sky high and the air crisp', as the Chinese say.
The smog meter app – usually a must for living in the polluted capital – was unnecessary in this season.
Leaving the tackily named Global Trade Mansion compound, I hit the moderately busy streets of the CBD.
This was a well-heeled part of the eastern side of town: 'the East is rich and the West is smart', as the saying about Beijing goes.
Embassies, multinationals, Starbucks and five-star hotels.
Usually, it took me only ten minutes to walk to my work.
But with every senior manager chasing me, I thought I better take a cab.
Mr Yang, the news director, had sounded very serious in his phone message – I guessed the channel boss was chasing him.
I'd known Mr Yang for eighteen years.
He was the man who'd interviewed me at CCTV English back in 2002 when I was a bored accountant trying to get into journalism.
After learning the ropes of TV at CCTV, I'd moved to Singapore and later Shanghai as China correspondent for the US business news channel CNBC.
But I always had a soft spot for the employer who gave me my first break, so when CCTV English offered me a position in 2012, I returned to Beijing.
Since then, I'd been working as an anchor on the Global Business show at CGTN (CCTV English rebranded).
The cab stopped outside CCTV headquarters.
Costing nine hundred million US dollars, the fifty-one-storey Rem Koolhaas building is nicknamed 'Big Pants' for its shape.
As I entered the empty stadium-sized lobby, I rehearsed my elevator pitch for the series in my head.
My phone buzzed. Mr Yang again.
Did I know where the meeting room was?
In fact, I didn't – I avoided meetings and paid scant attention to where they were held.
The room was in the 'crotch' of the building.
I took one of the building's ninety-six lifts to the thirty-seventh floor, found the room, knocked and entered.
I'd been expecting a one-on-one with Mr Fan.
Instead, perhaps twenty people were sitting around a twelve-metre-long table.
Now they were staring at me with stern expressions.
An unremarkable-looking man with a dark complexion stood and held up a badge that I couldn't read.
'Cheng Lei,' he said in a very officious tone, 'I am informing you on behalf of the Beijing State Security Bureau that you are being investigated for supplying state secrets to foreign organisations'.
As I stood there like a stunned mullet, two people appeared beside me and seized my phone and bag.
As at other times in my life when faced with a far-out situation, I remained calm, removed.
Perhaps we freak out only at ordinary things because we know the consequences aren't so grave.
Perhaps my work had trained me to not show shock when s*** happens – we experience more dramas producing a half-hour show than many people do in a month.
Perhaps I thought it would be explained away soon.
The charges sounded ominous but I knew I had done no such thing.
I was trusted by my bosses, liked by my co-workers and respected in the industry.
My world of business news had nothing to do with state security, surely?
Six months had passed since Wuhan's initial Covid lockdown.
Masks were no longer required at work, but these men and women wore them.
They showed nothing in their demeanour.
Before I was escorted away, my news director, a woman who had always appreciated my work, nodded at me with a 'sorry, I can't help you' expression.
'Just explain to them and you'll be all right,' she said.
That was vaguely reassuring.
As I stepped into a lift with the security officials, I was trying to appear brave and unaffected.
Inwardly, I was even a little excited – 'Wait till I tell people about this!' – imagining how I'd give a blow-by-blow with drink in hand, enjoying the shocked looks of dinner guests.
A journo is always on the lookout for stories.
We're somewhat addicted to the risky, wacky and dodgy, and while not hoping to become a story, we're not scared of the idea.
I surveyed the stiffs around me with disdain.
I knew they were from the Ministry of State Security (MSS), an organisation considered by foreign journalists to be murky and slightly ridiculous.
The MSS operatives I'd encountered or heard about tended to be young attractive types who'd try to 'have tea' with you and pose veiled questions about what you were covering and who you were interviewing.
These people were different – older, ordinary-looking.
The lift stopped at the carpark and I was ushered towards a pair of newish BMW 7 series sedans.
'Nice ride – so the MSS has a fat budget', I thought to myself, something I'd always suspected but had now been confirmed.
Should I feel flattered that they'd brought out the flash wheels to nab me?
What was this really about?
Only later did my mind turn to my conversation with the kids earlier in the day.
What little importance we attach to daily chit-chats with our loved ones, muscle-memory boiler-plate I-love-yous, AI-generated niceties sent with a tap, or even angry recriminations, snide comebacks said with the casualness of being able to go back and make up later.
Until it is the last message before a sudden calamity.
The documentary 'Cheng Lei: My Story' will be available to watch on Foxtel, Sky News Regional, Sky News Now, or online with a SkyNews.com.au Streaming Subscription, from Tuesday 3 June from 7:30pm AEST.