His testimony and the many reactions he aroused were quickly censored on the Internet on Thursday.
Chinese tennis champion Peng Shuai accused a former top Communist leader of coercing her into sex before making her his mistress.
On the social network Weibo, the former world No. 14 (in 2011), now 35, claimed on Tuesday to have had forced sex with former Deputy Prime Minister Zhang Gaoli, at the home of this last three years ago.
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.
A relative of the Prime Minister
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 her message, Peng Shuai, doubles winner of Wimbledon (2013) and Roland-Garros (2014) - associated with Taiwanese Hsieh Su-wei - recounts that Mr. Zhang forced her to have sex in her room after a game. tennis, seven years after having 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," she says, "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".
"An extraordinary Chinese"
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 face this kind of thing, which is really distressing,” said Lu Pin.
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.
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Sexual assault
Rape
China
Tennis
Female sport
Sport