Foreign Minister Penny Wong has vowed to keep advocating for a Chinese-born Australian journalist detained in China for two years on espionage charges.
Cheng Lei, a one-time high-profile presenter on China Global Television Network, was detained in Beijing in August 2020 and later formally arrested.
In March, the 46-year-old faced a closed trial in Beijing on charges of illegally supplying state secrets overseas.
Australia’s Ambassador to China Graham Fletcher was barred from attending the court hearing and China has not provided details of its outcome.
Senator Wong on Saturday said it was now “two years since Australian citizen Cheng Lei was detained in China”.
“Our thoughts today are with Ms Cheng’s family, including her two young children, with whom she has had no contact since she was detained,” she said in a statement.
“Since Ms Cheng was detained in August 2020, the Australian government has consistently called for basic standards of justice, procedural fairness and humane treatment to be met, in accordance with international norms.
“We will continue to support Ms Cheng and her family, and to advocate for Ms Cheng’s interests and wellbeing.”
The comments come after the foreign minister raised Ms Cheng’s case with her Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, on the sidelines of the G20 Foreign Ministers’ meeting in Bali last month.
In June, Chinese ambassador to Australia Xiao Qian said that when cases of Australians detained in China involved national security they usually were not conducted openly, and urged Australia to respect China’s legal process.
