Lei Cheng

I'm very energized by the reception.

And it's very empowering to have lost my voice, my identity, lost everything for so long.

I love TED.

And I love our lineup of awesome speakers who all have years of experience on their subjects.

My talk is about what I didn't have for a long time.

And as Claire told you, I received free accommodation from the Chinese government for over three years for so-called leaking state secrets overseas at the worst time for Australia-China relations.

And the first phase was called RSDL, Chinese spelling for hell.

Then in detention, the sort that makes jail seem like Ibiza,

And it was through that ordeal, call it the wonder diet, that I realized freedom is wasted on the free.

Let me explain.

You can be paralyzed by choice.

You can't comprehend the vastness or the preciousness.

So how do you make freedom count when you're lucky enough to have it?

To start, what it felt like to be not free.

and then to reclaim a lot of that, and in fact, with the TED audience, to magnify not just my voice, but that of others wrongfully incarcerated in China and in other countries, and to tell people that

even while China seduces with sophistication of technology and seemingly stable prosperity, that there are these dark corners in which repression and torture take place.

And I would love for people to take a nuanced approach to my story as opposed to, oh my God, that is so awful.

China is evil.

Don't go to China, bash the nearest Chinese person you see.

That would be the