Dylan Bettencourt
One of China’s biggest tennis stars, Peng Shuai, said in a deleted social media post that the former vice premier sexually assaulted her three years ago.
Peng alleged in a Weibo post that Zhang Gaoli, 75, sexually assaulted her in his house after inviting her to play tennis with him and his wife.
“I never consented that afternoon, crying all the time,” the 35-year-old wrote.
The former number one tennis doubles player said that some time after Zhang Gaoli forced her into having sex with him, they began a consensual relationship.
The post, which was deleted half an hour later, immediately went viral with searches for Peng’s name on China’s heavily controlled internet platforms soaring as screenshots of the deleted post were shared amongst iMessage and WeChat groups.
Before the post on Tuesday, there were virtually no searches for the star’s name but following the post, searches for Peng rose to over 20 million views.
Social media and the internet are both heavily censored in China and the private lives of leaders is an extremely sensitive topic.
The country’s censors desperately tried to stop the allegations from being spread by the public, and by Wednesday morning, a search for Peng’s name returned no results.
In the post, Peng said she had no proof or evidence to back her claims and refused to comment further.
Peng however, remained determined to tell the world the truth.
“Like an egg hitting a rock, or a moth to the flame, courting self-destruction, I’ll tell the truth about you,” she wrote in her post.
She said Gaoli stopped contacting her after he rose in the ranks of the Communist Party and at one stage, the 75-year-old had expressed concerns that she had filmed their encounters.
Chinese authorities have charged government officials with sexual misconduct in the past but accusations such as these against a politician in a position as high as Gaoli are unprecedented.
Image source: @Bloomberg
