Chinese tennis champion Peng Shuai accused a former top Communist leader of coercing her into sex before making her his mistress, a charge that was censored online Thursday.
On the Weibo social network, Peng Shuai, a double winner at Roland Garros in 2014, said on Tuesday that he had forced sex with former Deputy Prime Minister Zhang Gaoli, at the latter's home three years ago.
This testimony was quickly erased by Chinese censorship, as were the reactions on the subject, which spread like wildfire.
As of Thursday, searches for both Peng Shuai and Zhang Gaoli were still blocked on Weibo and the Baidu search engine.
China has seen a very sanitized version of the MeToo movement since 2018, with accusations of sexual harassment targeting stars of the song or the small screen, but never so far a politician.
"I kept crying"
Zhang Gaoli, aged around 75, was until early 2018 a permanent member of the Chinese Communist Party's political bureau and as such one of the seven most powerful men in China.
He is considered close to Premier Li Keqiang.
In his message, 35-year-old Peng Shuai said that Mr. Zhang forced him to have sex in his bedroom after playing tennis, seven years after he had already slept with him.
" I was very scared.
That afternoon, I first refused.
I kept crying, ”she writes.
"In the grip of fear and confusion (...) I gave in and we had sex."
She adds that Mr. Zhang's wife knew about it and "stood guard outside."
Peng Shuai specifies that she then became the mistress of the ex-leader, until an argument last week.
She adds that she has no evidence to support her claims. "You were always afraid that I would hide a tape recorder," she wrote, addressing Mr. Zhang.
"You will certainly deny it or go so far as to attack me".
AFP was unable to reach Ms. Peng directly.
From the United States, Chinese feminist activist Lu Pin felt that the tenniswoman's accusations were all out of a MeToo affair.
"Peng Shuai is an extraordinary Chinese who fought on her own to achieve world-class results and yet she had to deal with this kind of thing, which is really distressing", commented Lu Pin for the AFP.
Former world number one in doubles, Peng Shuai is currently ranked 189th in the WTA rankings.
In 2018, she received a six-month suspension and a $ 10,000 fine for trying to force her women's doubles partner to withdraw from Wimbledon the previous year.