Editorials

The Irish Times view on Peng Shuai’s disappearance: a staged return

Beijing will have to do far more to convince the world that the tennis star is not subject to coercion

Peng Shuai of China hitting a return against Sara Sorribes Tormo of Spain during their women’s singles quarter-final match at the WTA Tianjin Open tennis tournament in Tianjin in 2017. Peng Shuai said she was safe and well during a video call with the International Olympic Committee chief on Sunday, the organisation said. Photograph: STR/AFP via Getty Images

Mon Nov 22 2021 - 18:45

Friends and colleagues of Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai have been reassured by a video call between Peng and International Olympic Committee (IOC) officials on Sunday that she is at least alive. But they rightly take little comfort from subsequent IOC assurances that she is "safe and well" and would "like her privacy to be respected at this time". Attempts by the head of the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) to contact her continue to prove unsuccessful.

“It was good to see Peng Shuai in recent videos, but they don’t alleviate or address the WTA’s concern about her wellbeing and ability to communicate without censorship or coercion,” a WTA spokesperson said.

Peng's disappearance from the public eye for almost three weeks followed her allegations of sexual assault against a senior Communist Party official and have prompted widespread international concern and threats from women's tennis to pull out of the Chinese circuit. The IOC has also come under pressure to cancel the Winter Olympics being hosted in China in February.

The disappearances in China in recent years of a number of high-profile public personalities have on several occasions been followed by their low-profile re-emergence. And their unwillingness then to comment on their plight suggests strongly they have been offered a partial freedom in return for their silence. The IOC video call also has parallels with the 2018 lunch staged to set up Mary Robinson by the family of captive Dubai princess Latifa Al Maktoum to convince the world that she was not being held against her will. Robinson since admitted she was duped.

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Beijing will have to do far more to convince the world that Peng is not subject to coercion. Unfettered access must be granted to the tennis player who must be guaranteed the right to travel freely abroad. And the authorities must accede to the WTA demand for "a full, fair and transparent investigation, without censorship, into her allegation of sexual assault".

If the IOC is unwilling to pull the games, others will surely step up to boycott them.

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