Cheng Lei is a Chinese Australian journalist who’s covered China for over 20 years. In 2020 while Australia-China relations hit bottom, she was incarcerated by the Chinese government on espionage charges. Diplomatic efforts led to her release in 2023. 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. Lei’s memoir on freedom was published in June, 2025.