Peng Shuai, Chinese Tennis Player, Denies Sexual Assault Claim

Kenneth Roth, the executive director of Human Rights Watch, said on Twitter that Ms. Peng’s latest statement was “only deepening concerns about the pressure to which the Chinese government is subjecting her.”

Last month, video clips of her at a Beijing restaurant were posted on the Twitter account of the chief editor of The Global Times, an influential newspaper run by the Communist Party. The editor described them as showing Ms. Peng having dinner with her coach and friends. She also appeared in live video calls with the president of the International Olympic Committee and other officials with the organization.

The Chinese authorities are likely to seize on Ms. Peng’s latest statement, recorded on video, to push back against calls for a full investigation of her claims and to oppose the tennis association’s suspension of matches in China.

The minutes-long interview with Ms. Peng, which took place at a skiing competition in Shanghai, left many key questions unasked and unanswered.

She was not asked directly about her relationship with Mr. Zhang, who was a member of the Politburo Standing Committee, the Communist Party’s highest body. Nor was she asked how her understanding of sexual assault squared with her earlier description of what had happened with Mr. Zhang.

Ms. Peng has been one of China’s highest-ranked tennis players, reaching No. 1 in doubles in 2014 and as high as 14th as a singles player. Her Weibo account in early November of her relationship with Mr. Zhang lasted for all of 20 minutes before Chinese censors erased it. But the news quickly spread online.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/20/world/asia/china-tennis-peng-shuai.html