VIDEO – China: tennis champion Peng Shuai, erased from the web and memories – LCI

It only took twenty minutes for Peng Shuai’s post to disappear from Sina Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter. The tennis champion accused Zhang Gaoli of having forced him to have sex three years ago.

Now, as the correspondent of TF1 in Beijing shows, in the report at the top of the article, it is the very name of the champion which seems to have been erased. Any query concerning her on the Chinese search engine ends in nothing, while Peng Shuai has a career rich in victories, as evidenced by his doubles titles at Wimbledon and Roland Garros. Mentioning his name in a message even results in an account suspension.

Zhang Gaoli is not just anyone, far from it. While Peng Shuai probably met him when he was already the powerful secretary of the Communist Party for Shandong Province, the man had meanwhile become Vice Premier of China, which for 5 years made him one of the seven most important politicians in the country. According to the account of the champion, who had previously had an affair with this man 40 years older than her, it was shortly after her replacement in this position that the rape took place.

In the streets of Beijing, it is difficult to broach the subject of Peng Shuai’s disappearance. “She accuses who, the former Deputy Prime Minister?”, reacts a passer-by in a park in the Chinese capital, “So no, don’t film me, I’m going to have problems!”. “It vaguely tells me something”, develops a lady, “But the official media don’t talk about it, so as a Chinese citizen I can’t speak out”.

State television broadcast a strange written message on Wednesday evening, however., supposedly signed by Peng Shuai, which looks like a self-criticism as the Chinese PC likes them: “Hello everyone, this is Peng Shuai (…). The allegations of sexual abuse are not true, I have not disappeared and I am safe”.

No one believes it, but the show of force is enough. “What the Chinese government is trying to say”, explains researcher Yaqiu Wang, from the NGO Human Rights Watch, “it’s ‘look, I can make a confession from scratch’ : it’s a way of showing who has the power “. Beijing can make anyone they dislike, even the national women’s tennis star, disappear, and recently reminded people who were too high-profile to undergo such treatment: Jack Ma, the boss of the online sales giant. Alibaba, actress Fan Bingbing or the ex-director of Interpol, Meng Hongwei.

After a time of hesitation, the world of professional tennis reacts to the disappearance of the Chinese champion, under the hashtag “#WhereIsPengShuai” (Where is Peng Shuai?). The last personality to date, but not the least, to be moved by his disappearance, is American star Serena Williams. For his part, Steve Simons, the boss of the WTA (Women’s Tennis Association), also threatens to withdraw from China the many competitions of the circuit it organizes, while the UN is now demanding from Beijing “proof” that the athlete is doing well.

A journalist from state television, meanwhile, tweeted to international opinion (Twitter is difficult to access in China), photos showing Peng Shuai surrounded by soft toys and wishing his friends a “good weekend” (see tweet above), without the possibility of dating or putting them in context.