“I never said I was molested.” Shuai Peng straightens. But is it of your own free will?

At the beginning of November 2021, she posted a disturbing but also poignant entry on the Chinese messenger Weibo. She wrote about her relationship with the former deputy prime minister and a member of the Standing Committee of the Politburo. She admitted that 10 years ago she had an affair with Zhang Gaoli, with whom she met again three years ago, after he ended his political career.

“You said then that you had never forgotten me for the last seven years and that you would take care of me. You said this because I was scared and panicked and still had feelings for you from years ago. And then yes, we had sex. consent. I cried all the time. “-.

“Prime Minister and Me”, the Chinese blocked all inconvenient entries

The fast was 34 minutes. It did not have a large range, roughly a thousand people saw it. And then it disappeared. The process of censorship of the information contained therein has also begun. The process, because when news of Zhang Gaoli’s suggestion of sexual abuse of Shuai Peng began to be passed on, the Chinese system began to block the names of two. He also fought with users who used their initials or specially twisted letters in their names.

After some time – according to the US service China Digital Times, which was analyzing the case – even posts about tennis were blocked on the Internet, not to mention news from the past years about Shuai Peng and Zhang Gaoli. Context-sensitive topics, such as the romance of British politician Matt Hancock, were also disabled. Its thread became a pretext for sarcastic discussions of Internet users about the inappropriate behavior of officials.

At one point, it happened that on Dubai (a portal for sharing information about movies, books and music), entries about the Korean TV series “Premier and Me” were blocked. Clever Chinese users for the Peng and Gaoli case began to use this password as well.

Eventually, foreign media also started writing about the Shuai Peng case. They reported that the tennis player was accusing a former Chinese politician of rape. And they added a disturbing continuation – that today there is no contact with her, no one knows where she is. Actions with appropriate hashtags were created, a. However, this storm was also dealt with in China.

“What assault? I deleted the entry because I wanted to”

All these detailed translations and reminders of the events of recent months in the context of an interview that Shuai Peng just gave in L’Equipe, can be important. They show how the local system works, which simply removes uncomfortable things. Reading the explanations of the tennis player who raised the alarm on November 2, one gets the impression that the whole thing was a storm in a glass of water. That nothing happened or that there was a misunderstanding.

– This post caused a huge misunderstanding in the world. I wish we didn’t deform its meaning. That it would not be overinterpreted in the media – argued the tennis player.

– We do not understand. There was an accusation of sexual assault on it. What did you want to convey with this entry? – journalists from “L’Equipe” asked.

– Sexual assault? .

– After publishing this post, you disappeared without a trace. There was no contact with you. It was only after two weeks that we saw the photos with our friends.

– I’m not missing. Everyone could see me. Just a lot of people sent me messages at the same time. I couldn’t answer all of them. However, my relatives were in touch with me. although there was some exchange of the IT system then and I know that many people had problems with e-mails. I don’t know at all why the news was spread that I disappeared?

– Why did your Weibo entry quickly disappear?

– Because I deleted it.

– Why?

– Why? Because I wanted to.

You can read more about the situation in China at

Avoiding Traps and Experiencing Peace

This excerpt from an interview with L’Equipe has a few footnotes. Journalists note that the tennis player searched for the right words several times, but when asked about the deleted post, she answered firmly and confidently.

The thread of possible problems or unpleasantness on the part of the Chinese authorities is somewhat blurred. Shuai Peng avoided a specific answer to this question, merely describing that her private life should not be mixed up with sports and politics. She assured that its functioning has not changed since November. “It is as it should be, nothing special is happening,” she said. She added that she is a woman like any other “” sometimes happy, sometimes sad, sometimes stressed. “As for foreign trips and invitations from Thomas Bach (the head of the International Olympic Committee) to Switzerland, the tennis player noted that so far she had left the country for sports or in connection with the treatment of an injury, suggesting that this will not change.

She added that she had no idea about the whole action that was created in the world (# freeShuaiPeng, #gdziejestShuaiPeng), she did not realize that it had become the main topic of foreign newspapers and portals. She noted that she does not watch foreign news and reads poorly in English. She recalled that she had already spoken to the Chinese media and explained everything. She was also surprised that a psychologist from the WTA contacted her via e-mail and SMS asking if she needed any support. In the absence of a reply, the latter may have concluded that she had disappeared. She added that she also talked to the head of the WTA and told him that everything was fine. It was similar a few days later, when he already came to China for the games. During the conversation with “L’Equipe”, she thanked everyone for their care and also wished “that there would be less antagonism and more understanding among the nations” and that “everyone would be happy, avoid pitfalls and experience peace”. These are quite peculiar and original wishes. When it comes to sports matters, she repeatedly emphasized that at the age of 36 and struggling with various injuries and body aches, she would rather not be able to enter professional competition at the highest level.

Photo Hamish Blair / AP

Safe straightening scenario

The interview for L’Equipe was handled by the IOC and the Chinese Olympic Committee. It was carried out under several conditions. The competitor announced that she wanted to speak in Chinese, she also asked for questions earlier. The Chinese side asked to publish the text “without comments”.

What Peng said was explained by M. Wang Kan of the Chinese Olympic Committee. However, he himself recommended that journalists have an audio recording of the interview and, if necessary, also use their translator in Paris. Journalists talked to a Chinese woman in a hotel room where representatives of the Chinese Olympic Committee reside. Apparently, apart from them, no one asked for an interview with the tennis player. They described the player as “smiling, though a bit tense”. Interestingly, she came to the interview wearing a sweatshirt of the Chinese national hockey team. Journalists noted that they asked more questions than the player had previously received from them, and the interview lasted almost an hour instead of 30 minutes.

Can the tennis world be calmer after this conversation, or on the contrary? Recall that at the end of last year

“I couldn’t honestly ask our players to play in a country where Peng Shuai cannot communicate freely and it looks like she was forced to drop her sexual assault charges,” WTA chief Steve Simon argued at the time.

– It is impossible to analyze what happened between Peng Shuai and Zhang Gaoli. It is impossible to penetrate her psyche and her emotions, to find out the reasons for writing this post. We can only assume that she was harassed, and she wrote the post on impulse, willingness to pour out emotions, say about a crime or breaking the rules of morality by a former important party official – says Sport.pl Marcin Przychodniak, analyst for China at the Polish Institute of International Affairs .

– However, you can analyze what happened after she wrote this information. Though that is also a guess. The mechanism of this case is quite characteristic – emphasizes the clinic, who in November in an interview with TOK FM emphasized that the authorities would strive to safely silence the case.

“Is she doing it of her own free will?”

It can be argued that this is what is happening. “It seems Shuai Peng is doing everything he can to stop the scandal. The question is, does she do it of her own free will? Did she really think she had made a mistake? That she wrote something wrong in her emotions and withdraws from it, that she was not molested? Although now such a translation is a bit illogical for me. Or maybe the tennis player was forced, persuaded or asked for these explanations? Here various elements of pressure may come into play. perhaps it didn’t take much to persuade her to do certain things. But whether this happened, we are not able to decide, we can only assume on the basis of the mechanisms of operation of the Communist Party of China – explains Przychodniak.

– Due to the international dimension of the case and the ongoing Olympics, the Chinese authorities probably considered it most credible if she herself would provide these explanations. This can then be treated as a dimming of an uncomfortable topic. Because who will now be prone to accusations in the direction of China, if Peng Shuai herself has given a sign that all this is actually well and the matter is not? – asks the expert.