A new #MeToo scandal has broken out in China, reaching the top of power in Beijing.
National tennis star
Peng Shuai accused
former vice premier Zhang Gaoli
of sexual harassment in
a post on social media, the most prominent figure in the Communist Party to be brought up so far by complaints of this type.
In the message, the 35-year-old athlete - former world number one in women's doubles - claimed to have had an extramarital affair with the senior leader of the Chinese Communist Party for several years, but accused him of abusing her on several occasions.
Among the episodes reported by the tennis player is that of an alleged rape that took place when the former deputy premier of Beijing, now 75, had invited her to his house about three years ago for a tennis match with his wife. "That afternoon I was not consenting, I was crying the whole time," Peng wrote.
China has obscured any reference to a message attributed to tennis star Peng Shuai, former world number one in doubles, who accused a former Communist leader on social networks of forcing her into a sexual relationship, only to make her his mistress.
The accusation was formulated in a post published Tuesday on the official Weibo account of the 35-year-old Chinese, winner of the Roland Garros tournament in doubles in 2014, which was blacked out shortly after. In a long text, Peng Shuai recounted three years of forced sex with former Deputy Prime Minister Zhang Gaoli, who from 2013 to 2018 was one of the most powerful politicians in China.
But as censorship erased the message from the Chinese internet, the shares crossed the border and spread like wildfire. The authenticity of the post could not be verified and the athlete's entourage declined to comment. Zhang Gaoli, for his part, did not publicly comment on the accusation. According to Weibo data, a post on the player's official account has been viewed more than 100,000 times but the content is unspecified. The embarrassing revelations come just days after a major Chinese Communist Party (CCP) conclave convened in Beijing for the next few days with the country's top leaders.
To date, the two accounts of Peng Shuai and Zhang Gaoli are inaccessible.
Zhang Gaoli, now 75, was a permanent member of the CCP's political bureau until early 2018 and as such one of the seven most powerful men in China.
He is considered close to Premier Li Keqiang.