In her first public statement since her disappearance, Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai denied the sexual harassment allegations she had previously leveled against former PRC First Deputy Prime Minister Zhang Gaoli. “I have never said or written anything where I would accuse anyone of sexual harassment,” the 35-year-old female athlete said on December 19 in a video interview with the Singaporean Chinese-language newspaper Lianhe Zaobao.
Mobile footage shows that the interview was taken with Peng in Shanghai, where the cross-country skiing competition was taking place. When talking to a journalist, she often looks distracted and insecure; according to the translation of “Lianhe Zaobao”, he often utters phrases such as: “Wait, what was the question? Sorry, I did not understand.”
When asked if she was being followed after the allegations appeared, Peng replied that she was “always completely free.”
“Personal file” and “misunderstandings”
Peng Shuai called her subsequently deleted Weibo post, in which the accusations were made, “a private matter” around which “a lot of misunderstandings” have arisen. According to news agency AFP, Peng and Zhang had a secret relationship for many intermittent years. The Weibo entry indicated that the politician’s sexual assault took place early in the relationship, which the athlete broke off shortly before publication.
In response to Peng Shuai’s video footage, the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) said it continues to call for a “full, fair and transparent” investigation. The entry “did not alleviate or resolve the WTA’s substantial concerns about its welfare and ability to communicate without censorship or coercion,” the association said in a statement. Due to concerns about the safety of the Chinese tennis player, in early December, the WTA announced that it would suspend any competition held in China under its auspices.
Disappearance of a tennis player after a post on a social network
Former world # 1 in doubles, Peng Shuai has not appeared in public for over two weeks after she posted on her Weibo account on November 2 accusing Zhang Gaoli of sexual harassment, who served as # 1 from 2013 to 2018. Vice Premier of the PRC. Soon the message was deleted, and the tennis player stopped communicating.
The European Union, the United Nations, the United States and the United Kingdom have called on the Chinese authorities to provide information on where Peng Shuai is and what her condition is.
On November 21, the editor-in-chief of China’s state-owned newspaper Global Times announced on his Twitter microblog that Peng Shuai had appeared in public. He attached a video to his post showing Peng Shuai as a guest taking part in a tournament in Beijing. On the same day, the press service of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) reported that IOC President Thomas Bach had a 30-minute video conversation with the tennis player to make sure she was safe.
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