The Australian government has formally complained to the Chinese embassy over “ham-fisted” attempts by its officials to block the view of the formerly detained Australian journalist Cheng Lei during an event inside Parliament House.
The incident, which occurred during a signing ceremony with the visiting Chinese premier Li Qiang, has drawn condemnation from Australian MPs who branded the embassy officials’ actions as “counterproductive” and “inappropriate”.
The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, demanded that Anthony Albanese “grow a backbone and stand up for our country”, though the prime minister had already unequivocally denounced Chinese embassy officials for “ham-fisted” conduct.
Li was in Western Australia on Tuesday for the fourth day of a visit to Australia that was meant to showcase the stabilisation of the diplomatic and trade relationship after years of turbulence.
A signing ceremony in Canberra on Monday, however, was overshadowed by an awkward encounter between two Chinese embassy officials and Cheng, who had been detained in China in 2020 on ill-defined national security-related accusations before finally being released late last year.
Cheng, attending the event in her capacity as a presenter and reporter for Sky News Australia, sat with fellow Australian journalists in the seats set aside for media representatives in the main committee room of Parliament House.
As the agreements were being signed, two Chinese embassy officials stood in a position immediately in front of Cheng, appearing to block her from being visible to the cameras positioned on that side of the room.
Australian officials repeatedly asked the Chinese embassy officials to move from blocking the view of journalists, initially politely.
After these requests were rebuffed, a fellow Australian journalist offered to swap seats with Cheng, resulting in her moving two seats to the right.
When one of the embassy officials appeared to move around to try to get close to Cheng, Australian officials blocked the path.
In an interview on Tuesday, Albanese confirmed that Australian officials had followed up with the Chinese embassy “to express our concern” over the “clumsy” incident.
“When you look at the footage, it was pretty clumsy attempt, frankly, by a couple of people to stand in between where the cameras were and where Cheng Lei was sitting,” Albanese told ABC Perth Breakfast.
The prime minister described Cheng as “a very decent human being and a very professional journalist”.
He said there “should be no impediments to Australian journalists going about their job and we’ve made that clear to the Chinese embassy”.
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Hours later, Dutton said Albanese should be prepared to “call out bad behaviour”. Dutton said he had raised the “very regrettable incident” during his own meeting with China’s premier, Li Qiang, in Canberra late on Monday.
Dutton said he was “very pleased to hear that the government’s raised that with the Chinese embassy because it’s completely unacceptable in our free society for that sort of conduct to take place”.
Guardian Australia contacted the embassy twice on Monday and a third time on Tuesday seeking comment on the incident, but it has yet to respond.
The opposition’s foreign affairs spokesperson, Simon Birmingham, told Sky News the embassy “should think long and hard about the fact that this type of distraction caused by inappropriate conduct on their behalf is counterproductive”.
The opposition’s home affairs spokesperson, James Paterson, said the Chinese embassy should apologise for the incident.
“I don’t like the way that China chooses to treat journalists in their own country, but that is a matter for them,” Paterson told the ABC’s 7.30 program.
“The way that journalists are treated in our country is a matter for us, and particularly in our own parliament, and it shows incredible disrespect to us and our customs and norms to treat a journalist in that way.”
The Albanese government has worked to “stabilise” Australia’s relationship with its largest trading partner over the past two years, but insists it has not given ground on policy matters and the two sides will continue to “disagree where we must”.
