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Peng Shuai retracts sexual assault claims as fears over her wellbeing persist

115 points by throwamon 5y ago

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
bashtoni 5y ago
The 'China state-affiliated media' tag Twitter is adding is useful here.
- Tycho 5y ago
  Better would be a score gauging how many members of a media organisation have previously worked in parts of government (or still do).
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
barhaleali 5y ago
[dead]
echelon 5y ago
My heart goes out to the Chinese people. Our system is flawed, but it's one where even the most powerful of abusers can fall. The next century of competition is looking incredibly interesting. America made incredible leaps forward in WWII and the Cold War in the face of stiff competition. When our rivals disappeared, we only made incremental improvements in the decades that followed. We wasted our attention on distractions. Now we're once again facing a challenging and ideologically opposed rival that will force us to focus more than ever before. Let's hope that freedom and democracy endure.
- baybal2 5y ago
  - dang 5y ago
    That's not at all what I said.
    - baybal2 5y ago
      But this is how I understood what you said. I would eagerly await your reply in our conversation if this is not what you wanted to communicate to me at a time of your convenience, after we both have time to cool down after a heated conversation.
      - dang 5y ago
        As I told you, it's reached the point where I'm repeating myself. When users repeatedly post flamebait comments that predictably lead to flamewars, we rate limit their accounts (or ban them). That's not the same thing as saying that "nothing worthy will come out of divisive subjects", because it's still possible to post thoughtfully and substantively about those. I'm not saying it's easy, but it's doable, and that's what we ask of users here. The site guidelines don't say to avoid such topics, they say: "Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- daxuak 5y ago
  Ha, instead of having the abusers bite dust, Chinese people had their social media accounts falling when they reposted or shared Peng's original statement. The image was OCR'd and hashed to hand out auto bans.
baybal2 5y ago
People need to have this conversation no matter how flamebait it will be. The ability to speak truth is when you don't allow yourself to be shouted down.
headsupftw 5y ago
I read her Weibo post the same day it came out and I didn't get the impression that she was accusing Zhang Gaoli of sexual assault. I thought she was saying that they had an affair (if you can call it that. in the post she said one time while they were having sex, Zhang Gaoli asked his WIFE to guard the door...) on and off for years and now Zhang would no longer respond to her, basically abandoned her.
- whimsicalism 5y ago
  Interesting. I just read a translation in full and I did find it different from what I had expected from reading past coverage on this issue. [0] I'm unsure if this is an accurate translation though. Are there any Chinese speakers who can chime in? [0]: https://www.reddit.com/r/tennis/comments/qmn69a/full_translation_of_peng_shuais_weibo_post/ https://www.reddit.com/r/tennis/comments/qmn69a/full_transla...
  - headsupftw 5y ago
    Right? This is not the first time I've read it on the English media that Peng Shuai was accusing Zhang Gaoli of sexual assault either. I seriously wonder what is going on here. Don't get me wrong. I do think Peng Shuai cannot speak freely and something sketchy is going on. But putting words in her mouth is a rather strange way of trying to help her. On the other hand, if she didn't make that specific accusation, then what she just said made sense. She didn't retract anything. She stands behind what she said in that Weibo post, just not the "sexual assault" part interpreted by the western media.
    - TruthWillHurt 5y ago
    - jonnywane 5y ago
      I just read the above linked translation. An incredibly high powered state official love bombing a young woman who had explicitly said no to sex until she relents sounds like sexual abuse to me!
gerdesj 5y ago
"Peng accused the former vice premier Zhang Gaoli of having coerced her into sex" She then seems to have vanished and then various clumsily handled "sightings" were obviously orchestrated. Then we have this "retraction" nonsense. It's all a bit clumsy. There is absolutely no point in even trying to cover up a cover up like this. I can only conclude it is to provide some form of coverage for domestic use. Whatever the relative merits of Peng's accusation, her subsequent treatment is not the act of a nation governed even vaguely equitably. There is no attempt to demonstrate some form of judicial process, whereby an accusation is investigated in some way. The accuser simply disappeared and then surfaces periodically and I suspect that it is only the fact that she is an important sports person that this ridiculous process is being carried out. Depending on how charitable you are feeling, the handling of Peng's "story" by the local authorities is either breathtakingly naive or callously dismissive. (Edit: spelling)
- whimsicalism 5y ago
  Yeah, it really seems like China does not care strongly about its international image or has no sense of how things will play internationally.
  - cortesoft 5y ago
    Well, no other country has stood up to China on these abuses, so obviously they cover up their actions well enough to maintain their international standing.
    - whimsicalism 5y ago
      Aren't tennis tournaments now suspended in China?
      - chongli 5y ago
        I think their point is that governments are not interested in holding China accountable. What the WTA did was admirable in standing up for their player but they are only the governing body of a sport, not the government of any country.
IkmoIkmo 5y ago
Does anyone believe one would disappear from public appearances for 5-6 weeks due to ostensibly her 'resting at home', somehow oblivious to the fact that literally the entire world media is talking about your disappearance. This would be in a context of you having made a matter-of-fact accusation of sexual abuse of one of the 10 most powerful people in the country, that you recant only 5 weeks later as if it was some kind of metaphor that was misinterpreted. You'd think in such a situation, you'd at least be prone to say, at most within a few days, to call a few media outlets to indeed show the world that you haven't been kidnapped but are instead just chilling at home. Not only every media outlet around the world was talking about this for weeks, but also Amnesty International, the Olympic Committee, the International Tennis Federation, the European Union, the president of the United States, the nr 1 world tennis player etc etc, are all commenting on your disappearance by the state... Quite a weak attempt at propaganda.
- daxuak 5y ago
  > resting at home Home arrest, more likely...
- temp8964 5y ago
  And don't forget the part where she called Weibo and other Chinese social media companies to remove posts mention the affair and to block users from searching her name or Tennis. Also don't forget the part where she called the central television governing agency to block CNN signal when her affair was mentioned.
- tarboreus 5y ago
  This is a manifestation of some internecine conflict among the top CN officials, calculated to deliver a calculated embarrassment. It's poor propaganda, but what you see is only the least important part of what's happening. That is, it's not meant as propaganda.
- arvigeus 5y ago
  > Does anyone believe one would disappear from public appearances for 5-6 weeks due to ostensibly her 'resting at home' That's an interesting way to solve the problem with China's 996 work culture: "I am tired, I need a vacation, I think I should speak against the government to get some rest then."
softwaredoug 5y ago
> I have never claimed, or written about anyone having sexually assaulted me,” More than a retraction, this is chillingly Orwellian forgetting of recent history (undoubtedly forced)
VictorPath 5y ago
inside6 5y ago
fn-mote 5y ago
There's a lot written in the Weibo post that is not about the coersion. The coersion does not seem to be the main point of the quite long post? Is that accurate? The discussion here seems very focused on a small part of the post. Example outtake from the translation: "You played with me, and dumped me when you are done with me." Source: https://old.reddit.com/r/tennis/comments/qmn69a/full_translation_of_peng_shuais_weibo_post/ https://old.reddit.com/r/tennis/comments/qmn69a/full_transla...
- temp8964 5y ago
  That translation was done by someone with an intention to mislead. "为何还要回来找我，带我去你家逼我和你发生关系？" was translated to "why did you come back for me, and brought me to your home to have sex?" The translator literally dropped the word "逼我" (force me). So this translation defenitely cannot be trusted.
rkk3 5y ago
Maybe she just didn't see herself as a victim? Consent, language and culture are complicated. People in the US can describe a coercive experience like that without automatically labeling it as rape or sexual-assault. Of course given the radio silence, his political power, and being 25 to his 65 at the time... that seems less likely.
olliej 5y ago
So I’m not sure we can trust any retraction made after the original disappears for several weeks in a country with a track record of kidnapping and torturing people who say anything negative about the country. It seems entirely likely, if not probable, that any retraction of her early statements is coerced.
arvigeus 5y ago
Wait, wait, wait... wasn't "she" that claimed initially that her profile had been hacked?! Let me get this story straight: So someone hacked her account to write Peng Shuai + Zhang Gaoli "50 Shades of Gray" fan fiction? Was she hacked, or was she misunderstood? Make up your mind, China! According to The Guardian, "She confirmed that the Chinese version of the email to Simon was written by her, but said the one published by CGTN [...] was a translation because her level of English was not sufficient.". Then how she conducted the interview with IOC if her English is "bad"?
arvigeus 5y ago
Watch the source video (English subtitles available): https://www.zaobao.com.sg/realtime/china/story20211219-1224709 https://www.zaobao.com.sg/realtime/china/story20211219-12247... They tried to make it look like the reporter just happened to bump into her, but this is clearly set up by her "handlers."
alkonaut 5y ago
Has the men’s tennis assoc commented on this topic yet? Or are they going to continue taking Chinese money while the women's assoc isn’t?

115 points by throwamon 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

bashtoni 5y ago

The 'China state-affiliated media' tag Twitter is adding is useful here.

Tycho 5y ago
Better would be a score gauging how many members of a media organisation have previously worked in parts of government (or still do).
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

barhaleali 5y ago

[dead]

echelon 5y ago

My heart goes out to the Chinese people. Our system is flawed, but it's one where even the most powerful of abusers can fall. The next century of competition is looking incredibly interesting. America made incredible leaps forward in WWII and the Cold War in the face of stiff competition. When our rivals disappeared, we only made incremental improvements in the decades that followed. We wasted our attention on distractions. Now we're once again facing a challenging and ideologically opposed rival that will force us to focus more than ever before. Let's hope that freedom and democracy endure.

baybal2 5y ago
- dang 5y ago
  That's not at all what I said.
  - baybal2 5y ago
    But this is how I understood what you said. I would eagerly await your reply in our conversation if this is not what you wanted to communicate to me at a time of your convenience, after we both have time to cool down after a heated conversation.
    - dang 5y ago
      As I told you, it's reached the point where I'm repeating myself. When users repeatedly post flamebait comments that predictably lead to flamewars, we rate limit their accounts (or ban them). That's not the same thing as saying that "nothing worthy will come out of divisive subjects", because it's still possible to post thoughtfully and substantively about those. I'm not saying it's easy, but it's doable, and that's what we ask of users here. The site guidelines don't say to avoid such topics, they say: "Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
daxuak 5y ago
Ha, instead of having the abusers bite dust, Chinese people had their social media accounts falling when they reposted or shared Peng's original statement. The image was OCR'd and hashed to hand out auto bans.

baybal2 5y ago

People need to have this conversation no matter how flamebait it will be. The ability to speak truth is when you don't allow yourself to be shouted down.

headsupftw 5y ago

I read her Weibo post the same day it came out and I didn't get the impression that she was accusing Zhang Gaoli of sexual assault. I thought she was saying that they had an affair (if you can call it that. in the post she said one time while they were having sex, Zhang Gaoli asked his WIFE to guard the door...) on and off for years and now Zhang would no longer respond to her, basically abandoned her.

whimsicalism 5y ago
Interesting. I just read a translation in full and I did find it different from what I had expected from reading past coverage on this issue. [0] I'm unsure if this is an accurate translation though. Are there any Chinese speakers who can chime in? [0]: https://www.reddit.com/r/tennis/comments/qmn69a/full_translation_of_peng_shuais_weibo_post/ https://www.reddit.com/r/tennis/comments/qmn69a/full_transla...
- headsupftw 5y ago
  Right? This is not the first time I've read it on the English media that Peng Shuai was accusing Zhang Gaoli of sexual assault either. I seriously wonder what is going on here. Don't get me wrong. I do think Peng Shuai cannot speak freely and something sketchy is going on. But putting words in her mouth is a rather strange way of trying to help her. On the other hand, if she didn't make that specific accusation, then what she just said made sense. She didn't retract anything. She stands behind what she said in that Weibo post, just not the "sexual assault" part interpreted by the western media.
  - TruthWillHurt 5y ago
  - jonnywane 5y ago
    I just read the above linked translation. An incredibly high powered state official love bombing a young woman who had explicitly said no to sex until she relents sounds like sexual abuse to me!

gerdesj 5y ago

"Peng accused the former vice premier Zhang Gaoli of having coerced her into sex" She then seems to have vanished and then various clumsily handled "sightings" were obviously orchestrated. Then we have this "retraction" nonsense. It's all a bit clumsy. There is absolutely no point in even trying to cover up a cover up like this. I can only conclude it is to provide some form of coverage for domestic use. Whatever the relative merits of Peng's accusation, her subsequent treatment is not the act of a nation governed even vaguely equitably. There is no attempt to demonstrate some form of judicial process, whereby an accusation is investigated in some way. The accuser simply disappeared and then surfaces periodically and I suspect that it is only the fact that she is an important sports person that this ridiculous process is being carried out. Depending on how charitable you are feeling, the handling of Peng's "story" by the local authorities is either breathtakingly naive or callously dismissive. (Edit: spelling)

whimsicalism 5y ago
Yeah, it really seems like China does not care strongly about its international image or has no sense of how things will play internationally.
- cortesoft 5y ago
  Well, no other country has stood up to China on these abuses, so obviously they cover up their actions well enough to maintain their international standing.
  - whimsicalism 5y ago
    Aren't tennis tournaments now suspended in China?
    - chongli 5y ago
      I think their point is that governments are not interested in holding China accountable. What the WTA did was admirable in standing up for their player but they are only the governing body of a sport, not the government of any country.

IkmoIkmo 5y ago

Does anyone believe one would disappear from public appearances for 5-6 weeks due to ostensibly her 'resting at home', somehow oblivious to the fact that literally the entire world media is talking about your disappearance. This would be in a context of you having made a matter-of-fact accusation of sexual abuse of one of the 10 most powerful people in the country, that you recant only 5 weeks later as if it was some kind of metaphor that was misinterpreted. You'd think in such a situation, you'd at least be prone to say, at most within a few days, to call a few media outlets to indeed show the world that you haven't been kidnapped but are instead just chilling at home. Not only every media outlet around the world was talking about this for weeks, but also Amnesty International, the Olympic Committee, the International Tennis Federation, the European Union, the president of the United States, the nr 1 world tennis player etc etc, are all commenting on your disappearance by the state... Quite a weak attempt at propaganda.

daxuak 5y ago
> resting at home Home arrest, more likely...
temp8964 5y ago
And don't forget the part where she called Weibo and other Chinese social media companies to remove posts mention the affair and to block users from searching her name or Tennis. Also don't forget the part where she called the central television governing agency to block CNN signal when her affair was mentioned.
tarboreus 5y ago
This is a manifestation of some internecine conflict among the top CN officials, calculated to deliver a calculated embarrassment. It's poor propaganda, but what you see is only the least important part of what's happening. That is, it's not meant as propaganda.
arvigeus 5y ago
> Does anyone believe one would disappear from public appearances for 5-6 weeks due to ostensibly her 'resting at home' That's an interesting way to solve the problem with China's 996 work culture: "I am tired, I need a vacation, I think I should speak against the government to get some rest then."

softwaredoug 5y ago

> I have never claimed, or written about anyone having sexually assaulted me,” More than a retraction, this is chillingly Orwellian forgetting of recent history (undoubtedly forced)

VictorPath 5y ago

inside6 5y ago

fn-mote 5y ago

There's a lot written in the Weibo post that is not about the coersion. The coersion does not seem to be the main point of the quite long post? Is that accurate? The discussion here seems very focused on a small part of the post. Example outtake from the translation: "You played with me, and dumped me when you are done with me." Source: https://old.reddit.com/r/tennis/comments/qmn69a/full_translation_of_peng_shuais_weibo_post/ https://old.reddit.com/r/tennis/comments/qmn69a/full_transla...

temp8964 5y ago
That translation was done by someone with an intention to mislead. "为何还要回来找我，带我去你家逼我和你发生关系？" was translated to "why did you come back for me, and brought me to your home to have sex?" The translator literally dropped the word "逼我" (force me). So this translation defenitely cannot be trusted.

rkk3 5y ago

Maybe she just didn't see herself as a victim? Consent, language and culture are complicated. People in the US can describe a coercive experience like that without automatically labeling it as rape or sexual-assault. Of course given the radio silence, his political power, and being 25 to his 65 at the time... that seems less likely.

olliej 5y ago

So I’m not sure we can trust any retraction made after the original disappears for several weeks in a country with a track record of kidnapping and torturing people who say anything negative about the country. It seems entirely likely, if not probable, that any retraction of her early statements is coerced.

arvigeus 5y ago

Wait, wait, wait... wasn't "she" that claimed initially that her profile had been hacked?! Let me get this story straight: So someone hacked her account to write Peng Shuai + Zhang Gaoli "50 Shades of Gray" fan fiction? Was she hacked, or was she misunderstood? Make up your mind, China! According to The Guardian, "She confirmed that the Chinese version of the email to Simon was written by her, but said the one published by CGTN [...] was a translation because her level of English was not sufficient.". Then how she conducted the interview with IOC if her English is "bad"?

arvigeus 5y ago

Watch the source video (English subtitles available): https://www.zaobao.com.sg/realtime/china/story20211219-1224709 https://www.zaobao.com.sg/realtime/china/story20211219-12247... They tried to make it look like the reporter just happened to bump into her, but this is clearly set up by her "handlers."

alkonaut 5y ago

Has the men’s tennis assoc commented on this topic yet? Or are they going to continue taking Chinese money while the women's assoc isn’t?