‘Ham-fisted, clumsy’: Albanese breaks silence on Chinese officials blocking Cheng Lei

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has chided Chinese government officials for what he described as a clumsy and hamfisted attempt to block journalist Cheng Lei at a Parliament House event, revealing Australia had lodged a complaint with the Chinese embassy in Canberra over the incident.the Chinese officials’ behaviour

“We have different values and different political systems. And we saw some of that yesterday, I’ve got to say, with the attempt that was pretty ham-fisted to block Cheng Lei, the Australian journalist who we were able to get brought home, at the press conference,” Albanese told Perth’s Nova radio on Tuesday morning.“There was a clumsy attempt, really, to just stand in between where the cameras were, and Cheng Lei. And the Australian officials did the right thing and intervened.

Cheng was released from a Chinese prison in October last year, after being 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, a Chinese official named Thomas and a female colleague tried to ensure Cheng would not feature in any footage or photographs of the event – including that captured by Chinese state-owned media outlets.

Opposition home affairs spokesman James Paterson said Chinese officials had shown “incredible disrespect to us and our customs and norms to treat a journalist in that way”..

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