Disturbing Video of Tennis Star Peng Shuai Surfaces Where She Retracts Her Original Sexual Assault Accusation Against a Former Chinese Politician

Lintao Zhang. Getty Images.

The Peng Shuai story over in China has continued to be a deeply disturbing situation that has unfolded over the last month. It started with this now deleted social media post where the tennis star accused a former Chinese politician of sexual assault. 

30 minutes later that post was wiped off the internet. Peng Shuai wasn't seen or heard from for weeks until an email came to surface saying she was okay. Clearly it wasn't written by her and only raised more concern about everything going on with the former number 1 women's doubles player in the world. Then random videos that seemed very staged began to pop up showing her alive and "well." Then the definitely NOT corrupt IOC conducted interviews with her to show that she was fine and that their precious event in a few month's time could go on with no worries. 

Although it was great news to see she was alive, no one with a brain cell and understanding of the situation believed that she was operating her daily life under her own free will. Concern levels were through the roof and the WTA didn't believe a single thing coming out from her trying to tame the fires. Well, yesterday in another attempt by China to convince us she's doing fine, a Singapore newspaper reporter "ran into her" to ask a few follow up questions regarding her situation. 

Everything about that encounter was uncomfortable. Her body language was off and after reading some tweets from people who speak Mandarin, they claim she was stuttering on simple words. She claims it was Western media's fault for over exaggerating the sexual assault claim and says it never happened.  

"First, I need to stress one point that is extremely important, I have never said or written that anyone has sexually assaulted me, I have to clearly stress this point

Of course that's the next step here. Accuse a politician of something horrible. Disappear. Then claim nothing happened in the first place and it was all a big misunderstanding. China 101. If you read her original post above it's pretty clear what she is trying to say. Also she says her English is poor and it didn't get translated properly. Peng Shuai has been talking to English speaking media for about 20 years now. She speaks English perfectly fine, so I'm not buying the lost in translation nonsense. I'm also not sure she knows about the initial email that was sent "from her" to the WTA CEO. No shot in hell she wrote this. 

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The WTA remains extremely suspicious of anything coming out of China. They recently pulled out of all future events in China which could end up being a billion dollar decision. 

"It was again good to see Peng Shuai in a public setting and we certainly hope she is doing well. As we have consistently stated, these appearances do not alleviate or address the WTA’s significant concerns about her well-being and ability to communicate without censorship or coercion."

Good on them for not caving in the slightest. Takes a lot of balls to stand up to China, but they continue to do so. 

This is all so scary. I don't believe anything she said in those videos are her own words or anything she believes. China is in complete control of her as they look to protect this politician and their upcoming olympic games. It's genuinely horrifying that something like this can happen over there, but it's not the first time and certainly won't be the last. Unfortunately there's not much more that can be done at this point. These allegations she originally made are just going to disappear and she'll continue to live life over there in fear. Again, until she's out of the country you really can't take anything she says as legitimate. Even then though, she has family living there still so it's not like she's going to jeopardize them and speak out against China again. It's all so shitty, I just hope she remains okay and the situation doesn't get worse.