A 34-year-old English teacher from Australia has been deported from China after a drug raid on his home.

The man, named by Xinhua wire service as David Robert Ancel Green, could consider himself lucky to have escaped a jail term.

In a video published by state-run Xinhua, police in the eastern city of Changshu are shown forcing their way into the man's rented flat.

There they found what appeared to be commercial quantities of marijuana, a generator, heating lamps and a fan, as well as recordings of birds and music which the man reportedly told officials he played for the plants.

The video shows an interview in Chinese with police asking how long ago he started cultivating the marijuana, and him replying it was about three months earlier.

The man was reportedly an English teacher, who is said to have told police he acquired the seeds and a book about growing the plants on the internet.

The man, whose face is blurred on the video, was said to have been in China for 14 years.

According to the report, he was detained for 13 days before being repatriated on May 18 with a one-year ban on re-entering the country.

The details of the case cannot be independently verified, but stories from Xinhua are normally considered to have been authorised by the Chinese government.

This case appears to have been publicised in order to send a message about the country's approach to drug use.

China is currently in the midst of a widespread crackdown on illegal drugs with patrons at bars being asked to provide on-the-spot urine tests.

Those who fail are first detained for roughly two weeks, then deported.

In southern China, Australians charged with more serious crimes relating to methamphetamines or ice are currently facing the death penalty.