‘Rude, inappropriate’: Albanese toughens language on Cheng Lei incident as Chinese premier departs

“That was rude what occurred and, frankly, just counterproductive from the Chinese side and just drew attention to the fact that Cheng Lei was there,” he said in an interview with 6PR.

Albanese said he raised the matter directly with Li in their discussions and told Beijing’s second-in-command that the embassy officials’ conduct was “unacceptable and not appropriate behaviour”.

“We do have differences. We have different political systems, different values, but we need to work those things through,” he said.

“We’re a democracy, China is not, and I think that is just something that needs to be acknowledged and recognised … We need to uphold our values, but what my government has done is to be able to stabilise the relationship without making any concessions for our values.”

Albanese had earlier said that “our officials have followed up with the Chinese embassy to express our concern”.

Cheng was released from a Chinese prison last October after having been detained in August 2020 at the height of tensions between Australia and China over human rights, trade disputes and COVID.

During Monday’s signing ceremony between Albanese and Li, Chinese officials tried to block Cheng from featuring in footage of the event. Public servants from the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet tried to move them, but they remained in place.

‘Incredible disrespect’

Dutton told a press conference earlier on Tuesday afternoon that he had met the Chinese premier on Monday and raised Cheng’s treatment.

“I do want to point out that the prime minister clearly misled the Australian people yesterday when he got up and did a press conference and said that he heard nothing of it, he didn’t understand what the question was, or didn’t know anything about it. It’s completely inconceivable,” he said.

“The prime minister needs to stand up today to explain the discrepancy, explain why he didn’t tell the truth yesterday, and, please, grow a backbone and stand up for our country.”

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Opposition home affairs spokesman James Paterson said Chinese officials showed “incredible disrespect to us and our customs and norms to treat a journalist in that way” and said they owed an apology.

Opposition foreign affairs spokesman Simon Birmingham also accused Albanese of being “quite pathetic” by not addressing the matter in the first instance on Monday.

“This was an entirely counterproductive and inappropriate act by Chinese officials. It should have been called out by our prime minister, and government officials had the good sense to try to step in,” he told Sky News on Tuesday morning.

Comment has been sought from the Chinese embassy about the incident and whether it would apologise to Australian officials.

Benjamin Herscovitch, a China expert at the Australian National University, said Li’s visit had been a broad success, but noted that “points of tension and differences kept bubbling to the surface”.

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