Journalist Cheng Lei has returned home to Australia after more than three years of detention in China.

Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced her release by saying she was met at the airport by Foreign Minister Penny Wong.

On 13 August 2020, Cheng Lei, 48, was working as a business reporter for China’s state-run English language television station CGTN.

Her actions were later characterized as “illegally supplying state secrets abroad”.

The charges against her were never made public.

It appears that Canberra and Beijing are making progress toward thawing their frosty relations. Ms Cheng was released on Thursday. As a result of the pandemic, tensions between the two countries deepened, which led to a Chinese ban on Australian exports such as barley, coal, and timber. First signs of an easing of the diplomatic impasse emerged earlier this year with the lifting of these blocks.

Ms Cheng has been reunited with her two children in Melbourne, he said.

During the past few years, her family has been going through a very difficult time. “The government has been seeking this for a long period of time, and her return will be warmly welcomed not just by her family and friends but by all Australians,” Mr Albanese said, after speaking with Ms Cheng earlier on Wednesday.

According to him, her case had been resolved through the Chinese legal system.

The first six months of Ms Cheng’s detention in China were spent in solitary confinement without charges.

She was tried in secret in a Chinese court last March. Despite attempts to gain entry to the court, Australia’s ambassador to China, Graham Fletcher, was unable to do so. Additionally, her family was unaware of the charges against her.