Chinese tennis star Shuai Peng alleged that China’s former vice premier Zhang Gaoli had sexually assaulted her before she agreed to have an affair with him.
Peng penned a lengthy post on her verified Weibo microblog late on Tuesday.
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But by Wednesday the post was not visible and according to Washington Post, “signs of vigorous online censorship were evident, including a block on Weibo searches for Peng’s account and the suspension of comments on her other posts.”
In the post, Peng wrote that around three years ago, after Zhang had retired from his post, he and his wife invited Peng over for a meal.
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Zhang then pressured Peng to have sex.
“That afternoon I didn’t agree at first and kept crying,” the post said.
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Peng said that she eventually agreed to an affair with Zhang, but that she was angered about his insistence on keeping their relationship secret.
It added that he canceled a meeting with her on Tuesday to discuss her grievances.
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“I know I can’t say it all clearly, and that there’s no use in saying it,” she wrote. “But I still want to say it.”
The 35-year-old Peng has won 23 doubles titles and rose to World No 1 in doubles in February, 2017.
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Politicians in communist China are known to guard their personal lives closely and censor any negative comments.
“This is pretty explosive,” Leta Hong Fincher, author of ‘Betraying Big Brother,’ a book about feminism in China, was quoted as saying by the Washington Post.
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“This is precisely why the feminism movement is seen as a threat to the Communist government.”
