Meet the Author - Cheng Lei

Journalist and recipient of the 2024 Press Freedom Award, Cheng Lei will be in conversation with Michael Hertel on her new book Cheng Lei: A Memoir of Freedom, the extraordinary true story of journalist Cheng Lei whose life was abruptly transformed when she was detained in China on false charges of espionage. Harrowing, fierce and often darkly humorous.

In August 2020, Cheng Lei was the precise and polished anchor of China's government-run, English-language Global Business TV show, familiar to millions of viewers. A veteran business journalist, the Chinese-born Australian mother of two young children was at the pinnacle of her career when eight words texted to a friend led to devastating consequences.

Arriving for work one morning, Lei was met by officers from the notorious Ministry of State Security. After searching her apartment, they blindfolded her and drove her to a secret location. Detained, isolated and interrogated, she was cut off from all contact with her family and friends. She simply disappeared from TV screens, her flat, her life.

Lei was eventually coerced into agreeing to a five-year prison term in a country she loved but no longer recognised. On the outside, her story triggered a desperate fight for her release, a diplomatic row and global news. On the inside, her own struggle for freedom and her sanity in the face of the inconceivable had just begun. It would be ten months before Lei saw her lawyer, a year and a half before a 90-minute show trial, more than two years before she would briefly hear the voices of her children, and three years and two months before she saw the entirety of the sky again - after her release was secured and she made it home to Australia in October 2023.

Cheng Lei’s book is a powerful meditation on hope, freedom and the power of the human spirit; bravery in the face of cruelty and pettiness; the consolations of letters, music and books; and how unexpected friendships and the love of family can unlock the courage we all have within us to prevail.

It's only through losing freedom that we learn to truly appreciate it. When our canvas is bare we celebrate one drop of colour. Cheng Lei, TED2025

Cheng Lei is an Australian-Chinese journalist who has worked for both Western and Chinese media. She was born in China but grew up in Australia from the age of ten. At the tensest point in Australia–China relations, she was detained for supplying ‘state secrets to overseas organisations’ and was incarcerated in Beijing by China’s Ministry of State Security for three years and two months. Australian diplomatic efforts secured her release, and she was reunited with her family in October 2023. Lei currently works as a presenter for Sky News. She received the Press Freedom Award from the Australian Press Council in 2024 and was the Australian newspaper’s Australian of the Year in 2023.

Michael Hertel is a lawyer and former diplomat who was based at the Australian Embassy in Beijing from 2016 - 2020. He holds a Bachelor of Laws (Hons); a Bachelor of Arts; a Graduate Diploma in Legal Practice; and a Master of International Affairs from the Australian National University. He is a Member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors; an alumnus of the Australia-China Youth Dialogue; and is admitted as a solicitor to the Supreme Court of New South Wales and the High Court of Australia.

The vote of thanks will be given by Tom Connell, Chief Election Analyst/Politics Anchor, Sky News Australia.

Books are available for signing from 5.30pm and again after the event.

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A podcast will be made available after the event.

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