Australian journalist Cheng Lei spent almost three years in China’s prison system for breaking an embargo by a few minutes, she has revealed in her first interview after returning home to Melbourne last week. Cheng, 48, was working as a business reporter for China’s state-run English-language TV station CGTN when she was arrested on 13 August 2020. Cheng told Sky News on Tuesday night about how the lights were always on in her cell and for the first six months she lived in total isolation. Her charges were never made…
Tag: Australian media
Australia news live: Dutton says opposition ‘won’t be departing’ from net zero, China welcomes PM’s confirmed visit
From 26m ago Paul Karp Dutton says opposition ‘won’t be departing’ from net zero In recent days some in the Nationals have agitated to abandon the commitment to net zero, through a motion to be debated at Nationals conference and comments from frontbencher Barnaby Joyce that the estimated cost of net zero was “utterly untenable”. The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, has just rejected that push, telling Radio National the Coalition “won’t be departing” from net zero. He said: No [it doesn’t concern me], there’s strong support for net zero. It’s…
Chinese migrants believe Australian media fuels hostility towards them, study shows
First-generation migrants from China believe Australian media reporting has fuelled unfriendly or suspicious attitudes towards them, new research shows. The report, published by the University of Technology Sydney, explores the hopes and fears of members of Chinese-Australian communities, including a parent whose child came home from school asking: “Mum, is China going to invade us?” The report released on Wednesday focuses on first-generation Mandarin-speaking migrants from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and outlines the results of a survey of 689 respondents matching that description. The Australia-China Relations Institute at…
ABC’s international budget should grow as China spends billions on information war, inquiry told
China is spending billions to win the information war in the region, a committee inquiry has heard, and greater funding for the ABC would allow it to be a stronger presence in the Asia-Pacific. Claire Gorman, the ABC’s head of international services, told the inquiry into supporting democracy in the region that China is spending at least $3bn a year on international media, compared with $11m for the ABC. Extra funding due to roll out from July means the national broadcaster “stands ready” to do more to advance democracy, civil…
‘Pretentious’, ‘hyperbolic’ and ‘irresponsible’: what was behind Nine newspapers’ Red Alert series?
It was one of the most alarming front-page stories in the nation’s history. Last week, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age splashed the first episode in a three-part series with the headline: “Australia faces the threat of war with China within three years – and we’re not ready.” The most likely cause of war, the articles said, was a Chinese invasion of Taiwan to which the US would respond. “The nature of the threat extends to the prospect of a full-scale war – and Australia would have to be…
Paul Keating blasts Age and SMH for ‘provocative’ China war story
The former Australian prime minister Paul Keating has accused two of the country’s biggest newspapers of “the most egregious and provocative news presentation” in five decades, after they published front-page stories warning the country faced war with China within three years. The former Labor leader, who has long argued Australia should not be drawn into a war over the status of democratically governed Taiwan, took aim at the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age on Tuesday. The papers published a special report based on assessments of five national security experts…