Journalist Cheng Lei recounts her 1,154 days in Chinese prison for allegedly supplying state secrets to overseas entities. After being released in October 2023, she says she still feels the impact of her detention and struggles with grief over missing time with her children. Lei, who was a financial analyst turned television host at CGTN before her arrest, described being subjected to torture during her initial six months in prison, including prolonged silence and constant surveillance. She now seeks to "live urgently" and find beauty in freedom, but acknowledges that the experience has left emotional scars.
Written by the local model on 2026-09-05,
using this article's own text rather than the other coverage of the
same event (that is the story summary below).
Cheng Lei no longer needs to make roses out of toilet paper to add a hint of beauty to the repressive darkness of the Chinese prison system.
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Lei → need → system
She's free and finding beauty everywhere: dangling from a parachute above Victoria's Yarra Valley, playing soccer or starring in her own play about the 1,154 days she was wrongfully imprisoned for supplying state secrets overseas.
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she → find → secrets
But as Lei embraces her credo to "live urgently" after the horror of detention, the television journalist understands that she will never fully escape the impact of those lost three years.
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she → embrace → lost
"Life after freedom is not all roses," Lei, who was released in October 2023, tells Australian Story.
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who → release → Story
"In some cases, it feels like the sentence continues after release.
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sentence → feel → release
"
How those years affected her relationship with her children, Ava and Alex, just 11 and nine when she was arrested, hurts the most.
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she → affect → children
"I'm full of anguish about the time that was taken away when they needed me or wanted me to be there and I couldn't," Lei, 51, says.
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Lei → take → me
"But," she adds, choking back tears, "I see feeling grief and heartbreak as something lucky as well because the alternative is the tomb, is prison, is feeling nothing.
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alternative → add → nothing
For almost 20 years, Lei chronicled the economic rise and "opening up" of China, her country of birth, which she left aged 10 to settle in Melbourne with her parents.
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she → chronicle → parents
Any thoughts of studying journalism were quashed by her father, who said, "You're not blonde, you're not pretty … and commerce will be much more employable."
But soon after returning to China in 2000 as a financial analyst, Lei became an intern for the English-language arm of the Chinese state broadcaster, CGTN.
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Lei → study → broadcaster
Three months later, she was hosting her own show.
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she → host → show
In Beijing, she attended glamorous embassy parties, hosted top-level business forums and blasted out Cyndi Lauper's True Colours on karaoke nights.
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she → attend → nights
Then, on August 13, 2020, in the midst of the COVID pandemic, her boss called her into work.
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boss → call → work
She thought he wanted to discuss her proposal for a new show.
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he → think → show
Instead, the room was filled with people, one of them a man with a badge who stood up and said, "We are now investigating you for supplying state secrets to overseas entities."
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We → fill → entities
Lei assumed it was a terrible mistake.
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it → assume → ?
She thought she'd be out very soon.
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she → think → ?
'It's hell': Torture pushes Lei to the edge
Try to sit still in silence for 14 hours.
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Torture → push → hours
Now imagine doing that while two guards are positioned 30 centimetres from your face, staring.
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guards → imagine → face
You need permission to go to the toilet or walk a few metres for exercise.
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You → need → exercise
You can't close your eyes until bedtime.
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You → close → bedtime
The lights stay on.
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lights → stay → ?
This torture, which China calls Residential Surveillance at a Designated Location, or RSDL, is what Lei endured for the first six months.
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Lei → call → months
"It drives you to want to die," Lei says.
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Lei → drive → you
"I felt I was sitting in a sea of pain.
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I → feel → pain
I felt that I was an eating, shitting vegetable.
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I → feel → ?
I felt I wasn't a human anymore.
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I → feel → ?
It's so perverse that I can't think of another system that would invent something like this that looks so benign but is so abhorrent.
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that → think → this
It's designed to break you, says Lei.
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Lei → design → you
But for a long time she didn't know what crime the Chinese government believed she'd committed.
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she → know → crime
She's still not certain why she came to the attention of Chinese officials.
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she → come → officials
However, she learned at trial that surveillance of her started a few days after Australia's then-foreign minister, senator Marise Payne, called for an international inquiry into the origins and handling of the initial COVID outbreak in China's Wuhan.
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minister → learn → Wuhan
Lei accused after sending eight-word text
Lei knew none of this when she was being interrogated in RSDL.
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she → accuse → RSDL
Most of those interrogations occurred within the first month, combing over almost every element of her life.
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Most → occur → life
One recurring subject was her work as a journalist at the opening of the National People's Congress earlier that year, and a document from that high-level event that was found on Lei's home office desk.
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that → recur → desk
It was the Premier's Work Report, which reviews China's past economic performance and sets targets for the year ahead.
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which → review → year
Lei had texted eight words — "No growth target. GDP. 9 Min [million] jobs target" — to a friend who worked for the US-owned media company, Bloomberg.
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who → texte → company
The Chinese accused Lei of breaking an embargo by seven minutes, gifting Bloomberg a scoop.
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Chinese → accuse → scoop
Lei says she was unaware of an embargo and that evidence to support that claim was manufactured afterwards.
uncertain
evidence → say → claim
But she saw no point protesting her innocence or protecting her reputation.
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she → see → reputation
…and 63 more, not listed.