Australian journalist Cheng Lei has recounted the “mental torture” she endured during her imprisonment in one of China’s infamous RSDL (Residential Surveillance at a Designated Location) black jails in a gripping new documentary.
It’s been just over 18 months since Cheng safely returned to Australia after nearly three years in Chinese custody.
She was a well-known business news anchor for a Chinese state broadcaster when, in August 2020, officers from China’s Ministry of State Security unexpectedly raided her Beijing apartment.
After confiscating all her electronic devices and searching her belongings, they blindfolded Cheng and took her into China’s network of secret detention centers.
Now a presenter for Sky News based in Melbourne, Cheng explores the harsh realities of her detention in the documentary Cheng Lei: My Story.
She shares deeply personal accounts of the darkest period of her life, offering rare insight into one of the world’s most brutal justice systems.
Cheng spent almost six months in solitary confinement after being accused of endangering China’s national security.
Though Chinese authorities never clearly explained the charge, she was held for 177 days before her official arrest.
“RSDL is the Chinese abbreviation for hell,” Cheng said in the film.
“It stands for Residential Surveillance at a Designated Location, which sounds like house arrest.
“But in reality, it’s mental torture.”
RSDL remains little understood outside China.
Human rights group Safeguard Defenders, which monitors disappearances in the country, describes detainees held at undisclosed locations for up to six months in cells “designed to prevent suicide.”
Witnesses report being denied legal counsel or outside contact and “regularly subjected to torture and forced confessions,” experiences strikingly similar to Cheng’s.
Faced with a replica of her cell, Cheng became emotional, saying the months she spent inside were “as close to dying and wanting to die as I ever got.”
“This is where I spent six months,” she said entering the mock cell.
“Just sitting here, thinking I would never get out, feeling utterly helpless.”
The cell was simple — bare cream walls, a bed, and a stool where guards monitored her constantly.
She was forbidden from talking or making even the slightest movement without permission.
“I had to sit on the edge of the bed with my hands in my lap, not allowed to cross my legs or ankles, not allowed to close my eyes, talk, laugh, see sunlight or the sky, exercise, make requests, or see color — just fear, desperation, isolation, and unbearable boredom,” Cheng explained.
She said she sat like this for 13 hours each day.
“I hated having to stay so still, not being able to do anything,” she said.
“How do they come up with this? Just nothingness. Nothingness, but a sea of pain.
“I had no idea what was happening or how long I’d be there.”
Meanwhile, Australian officials engaged in intense diplomatic efforts to obtain consular access, working to inform Cheng’s family — including her two children in Melbourne — of her whereabouts and condition.
Safeguard Defenders estimates that as many as 113,407 people have been detained under RSDL and subsequently faced trial.
After her formal arrest, Cheng was moved from RSDL to a larger cell shared with three other women.
Although still under 24-hour surveillance, being with others provided some relief, and she gained more clarity about why she was detained.
Cheng had access to Chinese government releases as a senior state media journalist, including a major announcement that Beijing would not set a 2020 GDP target due to Covid-19 uncertainties.
She was close friends with Bloomberg reporter Haze Fan, with whom she shared sources.
Cheng said Fan had urged her to provide a “series of government reports” that hadn’t yet been published to help break a story at Bloomberg.
“I wanted to help her because she helped me,” Cheng said.
She texted Fan the critical “eight words” — “no growth target,” “GDP,” “nine million jobs target” — at 7:23 a.m., seven minutes before the announcement was made public.
“The charge was supplying state secrets to foreign entities, which boiled down to texting those eight words, seven minutes before the embargo lifted, to my friend at Bloomberg,” Cheng explained.
Her detention coincided with strained Australia-China relations.
Former Prime Minister Scott Morrison angered Beijing by supporting an inquiry into the origins of COVID-19, prompting a warning from China’s ambassador that the probe was “dangerous.”
Tariffs followed on Australian goods, triggering a multi-year trade war that has only recently eased with the Albanese government unlocking $20 billion in trade.
Cheng’s imprisonment is widely seen as part of China’s pressure campaign against Australia.
She was released only as diplomatic relations began to normalize in late 2023.
Reflecting on her experience, Cheng described the emotional toll of being used as a pawn in geopolitical conflict.
“You don’t know if you’ll ever see your family again because you don’t know what they want,” she said.
“You don’t know how everything you thought was good is now possibly criminal.
“Everything that brought you happiness or pleasure becomes so distant — it causes pain.”
