Chinese tennis star accuses former vice premier of forcing her to have sex

Tennis player Peng Shuai, 35, a former No. 1 in the world doubles rankings and one of China’s biggest sports stars, accused a former Chinese vice premier of forcing her to have sex years ago. The athlete’s revelation was made on a social network, in a message that was later deleted.

According to a screenshot of Peng’s verified account on Weibo, a kind of Chinese Twitter, the tennis player claimed that Zhang Gaoli, who was part of the Politburo Standing Committee, the body that represents the Communist Party’s top management, coerced her into having sex and, later, they had an intermittent consensual relationship.

The post was deleted about half an hour after it was published, which hasn’t stopped an increase in the search for Peng’s name on the hyper-controlled and censored Chinese internet. Screen replays were also shared in closed groups in the WeChat and iMessage apps.

The sportswoman, who said in the message she had no evidence to support her allegations, did not respond to a request for comment sent to her Weibo account. The sports marketing agency APG, which claims to represent the athlete, also did not respond to a request from the Reuters news agency.

Likewise, the China State Information Council office did not return requests for comment. When asked about the Weibo post, the country’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin, at his daily press conference, said he had no knowledge of the issue and that the matter “is not a foreign policy issue.”

Weibo and Tencent, responsible for operating WeChat, also did not respond.

Zhang, now 75, was China’s Vice Premier between 2013 and 2018. He was also party secretary for Shandong Province and was a member of the Politburo Standing Committee between 2012 and 2017. Peng, in turn, was No. 1 in the world doubles ranking in 2014, becoming the first Chinese tennis player to reach the top of the list, after winning the tournaments at Wimbledon in 2013 and Roland Garros in 2014 (both alongside Taiwanese Hsieh Su-wei).

A Weibo tool shows that the hashtag with Peng’s name, which had little or no mention until this Tuesday (2), has reached more than 20 million views since she posted the message on the platform. Discussions about tagging appeared shortly after the post, but then plummeted as posts on the topic were deleted.

This Wednesday morning (3), searches for Peng’s name on the social network did not bring results, and debates regarding the topic were blocked. Users of WeChat and QQ, another chat app, had the screen replay send function disabled. Although Peng’s Weibo account remains active, with previous posts visible, the comment and repost options aren’t working.

For years, cases of sexual harassment and abuse were rarely publicly discussed in the country. The landscape changed in 2018, when the #MeToo movement arrived in China after a university student in Beijing accused a teacher of harassment. The episode caught the attention of NGOs, the press and other sectors.

This year, the denunciations gained strength again, with cases such as actor, model and rapper Kris Wu. Former member of a K-pop band, he was exposed by the influencer Du Meizhu, in a case that came to light after the young woman gave an interview to a website.

According to a police statement at the time, Kris’ agent asked Du to go to the singer’s house on the pretext of selecting her to appear in a video clip. Upon arriving at the scene, she, a minor at the time, was allegedly forced to consume alcohol and have sex with him. The young woman also accused the singer of attracting more than 30 minors and of forcing relationships with them. Kris denied the allegations, but lost million-dollar contracts with sponsors.

Another accusation against a famous person that reverberated this year was that of Hunan Satellite TV presenter Qian Feng. Ahead of several variety shows, he was known for making sexual jokes and sexist comments on television.

Qian became the center of a huge controversy after a woman, identified on the internet as Xiao Yi, reported on Weibo that she was sexually abused by him in 2019. an excessive amount of alcohol until you lose consciousness.

The next day, she woke up naked in Qian’s apartment, not remembering what happened after dinner. According to her, the presenter admitted the abuse and said he used a condom with her.

Qian would have offered money to keep the victim quiet. She refused and went to the police, who refused to pursue the complaint because the presenter “asked for forgiveness”. Xiao said he developed deep depression and tried to commit suicide several times after the incident.

After the complaint, the presenter was removed and investigations into the case were reopened — the authorities denied the closing of the previous investigation due to the apology.

As in the case of Xiao and Peng, social networks are usually the main channel for exposing complaints, as the local press in general does not cover the topic. Even so, discussions in online spaces do not escape the eyes of the government, which watches the internet in the country — avoiding, for example, publications that speak ill of the regime.

For this, a series of laws and digital blocking tools were created, as part of a policy that has been improved since the 1990s. Companies in the country’s digital market are obliged to monitor and restrict user activity, under penalty of losing the right to operate. Citizens who violate the rules can be fined and imprisoned.

Controlling the Internet is part of the Chinese Communist Party’s censorship policy, which also prohibits the circulation of news and information that the government dislikes or that, in the regime’s view, could cause problems for society.

The blocking affects different ways in which information circulates: in data traffic, with programs that scan networks in search of prohibited keywords or topics; in search engines, if the user searches for something banned; and in social media posts and private messages, which can be blocked.

Foreign app stores and websites and services are also targeted by online sanctions. Another measure taken by the government is to veto anonymity. The user must provide his real identity when accessing pages and services and when posting. It is possible to use aliases publicly, but the provider must keep the actual identity record.