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      in Tennis

      Where Is Peng Shuai? The Question the I.O.C. Is Too Weak To Ask.

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      Chinese tennis player Peng Shuai went missing after publicly accusing a former government official of sexual assault. Tennis stars, led by Naomi Osaka, and the WTA have all asked #whereispengshuai?Where is Peng Shuai?That’s the question the International Olympic Committee and its president, Thomas Bach, should be shouting right now — loud, demanding, and aimed squarely at the leadership in China, set to host the Beijing Games in February. But instead of firm demands, we’re hearing not much more than faint, servile whispers from Olympic leadership.Peng, 35, a Chinese tennis star and three-time Olympian, has been missing since Nov. 2, when she used social media to accuse Zhang Gaoli, 75, a former vice premier of China, of sexually assaulting her at his home three years ago. She also described having had an on-and-off consensual relationship with Zhang.Peng wrote that the assault occurred after Zhang invited her to play tennis at his home. “I was so scared that afternoon,” she noted. “I never gave consent, crying the entire time.”“I feel like a walking corpse,” she added.The message was quickly deleted from China’s government-controlled social media site.There have been no verifiable signs of Peng since — no videos or photographs to prove she is safe. Instead, all the outside world has seen is a stilted message, said to have been written by Peng and sent to the WTA, in response to its demand for an inquiry into her allegations. Peng’s supposed response, released by China’s state-owned broadcaster on Wednesday, immediately raised concerns.“Hello everyone this is Peng Shuai,” it read, before calling her accusation of sexual assault, made just weeks ago, untrue. “I’m not missing, nor am I unsafe. I’ve been resting at home and everything is fine. Thank you again for caring about me.”It reads like a message from a hostage, a natural concern given the Chinese government’s long history of using force and heavy-handed pressure to crush dissent and flatten those it deems guilty of going against the state.So, what has been the I.O.C.’s response to a potentially endangered Olympian? A neutered, obsequious statement.“We have seen the latest reports and are encouraged by assurances that she is safe,” read an official I.O.C. declaration on Thursday.What world of fantasy is the I.O.C. living in? Given China’s history, we can reasonably assume the latest missive supposedly written by Peng is a fraud. Peng dared to speak up with force and candor, but not the I.O.C., a Swiss-based organization with a history of cowing to dictators that goes back to Adolf Hitler and the 1936 Summer Games.After some criticism, the committee followed up with another statement, hinting its representatives were talking to the Chinese.“Experience shows that quiet diplomacy offers the best opportunity to find a solution for questions of such nature,” it said, offering no evidence of prior success. “This explains why the IOC will not comment any further at this stage.”Responding to a message purportedly written by Peng, the I.O.C. said in a statement, “We have seen the latest reports and are encouraged by assurances that she is safe.” Valery Gache/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesBach and the wide cast of leadership at the I.O.C. typically use every chance possible to claim the Olympic mission stands for humanity’s highest ideals. They say all Olympic athletes are part of a family. Peng was among those ranks in 2008, 2012 and 2016. Once an Olympian, they say, always an Olympian.That’s an admirable idea, but it gets tossed to the wayside when the stakes grow too high.Looming are Beijing’s Winter Games, fueled by huge fees for broadcasting rights and corporate sponsorships and the billions spent by the Chinese government in an effort to gain respect on the international stage.Do Bach and the I.O.C. have the guts to stand up for one of their own and call out the dictatorial host of its next showcase for a frightening human rights abuse?The answer, so far at least, is no.Contrary to the official I.O.C. statement, nothing is encouraging about this situation.Not if you know the long history of Chinese authoritarianism. Not if you know how it has been hammering at dissent and silencing anyone with enough clout to threaten national order — including prominent cultural and business figures like Jack Ma, founder of the internet firm Alibaba.Not if you know about how China has suppressed protest in Hong Kong and Tibet, or if you pay attention to the treatment of Muslim minorities — deemed genocide by the United Nations and dozens of nations, including the United States — despite Chinese denials.As predicted by critics, or anyone watching with even a bit of common sense, the I.O.C. finds itself compromised. That’s the cost of cozying up to authoritarian hosts like China, which held the Summer Games in 2008, and Russia, the site of the 2014 Winter Games.Compare the typical fecklessness of Bach and the I.O.C. with the uncompromising approach taken by the women’s pro tennis tour, which has been unafraid to stand up boldly for Peng, a former world No. 1 in doubles.“I have a hard time believing that Peng Shuai actually wrote the email we received or believe what is being attributed to her,” wrote Steve Simon, chief executive of the WTA Tour, in a statement. “Peng Shuai displayed incredible courage in describing an allegation of sexual assault against a former top official in the Chinese government.”Simon continued: “Peng Shuai must be allowed to speak freely, without coercion or intimidation from any source. Her allegation of sexual assault must be respected, investigated with full transparency and without censorship.The voices of women need to be heard and respected, not censored nor dictated to.”That’s putting people over profit. That’s guts. Professional tennis in China is a lucrative, fast-growing market. The men’s and women’s tours hold high-profile tournaments there, and the WTA Finals are slated for Shenzhen in 2022.Given the way female tennis players have long led on matters of human rights, it is no surprise that Billie Jean King, Serena Williams, Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova have stood strongly for Peng. And it is no surprise younger stars have followed suit, led by Naomi Osaka, the torch bearer in the Tokyo Games this past summer, who has added her significant stature to the chorus asking “Where is Peng Shuai?”But Bach and the I.O.C., peddlers of Olympic mythology, have yet to join that chorus. Peng Shuai is part of the Olympic family, but the I.O.C. overlords lack the spine to stand up for one of their own. More

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      in Tennis

      China's Peng Shuai Makes #MeToo Claim Against Zhang Gaoli

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      Peng Shuai’s accusation against Zhang Gaoli takes the country’s budding #MeToo movement to the top echelons of the Communist Party for the first time.Peng Shuai, the professional tennis star, publicly accused a former vice premier of China of sexual assault, igniting an online firestorm of attention to a #MeToo allegation that for the first time touched the pinnacles of Communist Party power.Ms. Peng made the allegation in a post on Tuesday night on her verified account on Weibo, China’s version of Twitter. In it, she described an assault that began an on-and-off consensual relationship with Zhang Gaoli, who from 2012 to 2017 served on the party’s Politburo Standing Committee, the top ruling body in China.The post was removed within minutes, but the allegations swirled through the country’s heavily controlled internet, fueled by the fame of the accuser and the accused. That kept the censors inside China’s Great Firewall scrambling.Searches of her name and even the word “tennis” appeared to be blocked, reflecting the extraordinary sensitivity within China of discussing misconduct by party leaders.“The impact of #MeToo has been accumulating for three years,” Lü Pin, an activist who founded the now-banned Chinese online forum Feminist Voices, said in a telephone interview from New Jersey, where she now lives. “When the first women began talking about their experiences three years ago, no one could have imagined that it would reach this high level.”Ms. Peng’s accusations could not be corroborated. In her post, she acknowledged that she would be unable to produce evidence of her accusation, suggesting at one point that Mr. Zhang had expressed worries that she might record their encounters.She could not be reached for comment. The State Council, China’s governing body, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.The authorities have charged government officials with sexual misconduct before, often in conjunction with corruption investigations. Never before, though, has an accusation of sexual misconduct been leveled publicly against as senior a political leader as Mr. Zhang.“These allegations are not shocking in substance but are shocking in the target,” Bill Bishop, the founder of Sinocism, a newsletter on Chinese affairs, wrote.Zhang Gaoli, the former vice premier, in 2014. As a member of the Communist Party’s Politburo Standing Committee, Mr. Zhang was once one of the most powerful people in the country.Kim Kyung-Hoon/ReutersAn economist by education, Mr. Zhang, now 75, rose through the ranks of the party and government. He served as governor of Shandong, the coastal province, and then as party secretary in Tianjin, the provincial-level port city on the Bohai Sea. As vice premier from 2013 to 2018, he was one of seven members of the Politburo Standing Committee, headed then, as now, by China’s leader, Xi Jinping.“I know that for someone of your eminence, Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli, you’ve said that you’re not afraid,” Ms. Peng wrote in her post, “but even if it’s just me, like an egg hitting a rock, or a moth to the flame, courting self-destruction, I’ll tell the truth about you.”Women in media, at universities and in the private sector in China have all come forward with accusations of sexual assault and harassment — only to face pushback in the courts and censorship online.In China, many women say, there remains an ingrained patriarchal tradition of using positions in business or government to gain sexual favors from subordinates or other women. In 2016, the country’s top prosecuting agency listed the exchange of “power for sex recklessly” as one of six traits of senior officials accused of corruption.The accuser in another high-profile harassment case, Zhou Xiaoxuan, posted a note expressing sympathy for Ms. Peng, illustrating how widely the accusation became known despite the censorship. “I hope she’s safe and sound,” she wrote.Ms. Zhou, who in 2018 accused a prominent television anchor of sexual harassment four years earlier, emerged as a trailblazer of China’s fledgling #MeToo movement and also a victim of the social and legal challenges women who come forward face. In September, a court in Beijing ruled that she had “tendered insufficient evidence” to prove her case against the anchor, Zhu Jun, who has sued her for slander.Mr. Zhang retired in 2018, when, according to Ms. Peng’s account, the two resumed a relationship that had begun when he served in Tianjin, which would have been between 2007 and 2012. She said he had first assaulted her after inviting her to play tennis with him and his wife. “I never consented that afternoon, crying all the time,” she wrote, not specifying when exactly the assault occurred.At the time she was soaring through a professional career that would propel her to a No. 1 ranking in doubles with the Women’s Tennis Association in 2014 and as high as 14th as a singles player.With her partner, Hsieh Su-wei of Taiwan, she won the doubles championship at Wimbledon in 2013 and again at the French Open in 2014. That year, playing singles, she reached the semifinals of the U.S. Open. She remains ranked 189th in singles and 248th in doubles, last playing at the Qatar Total Open in February 2020, according to the association.She was one of the athletes who broke out of the country’s sports system, which mandates that most train under state coaches and give most of their earnings, even from endorsements, back to the state. She was one of the first to reach an agreement to allow her to train and travel by herself and keep a larger share of the earnings.Her post continued to circulate in screen shots and other messages even after it was deleted, a testament to the resonance accusations like hers has in Chinese society.“The censorship is not working,” Ms. Lü, the activist, said. She added that while it was important that people were discussing the issue, “changing policy is the most difficult part.”Chris Buckley More

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      in Basket

      Celtics Games Are Pulled in China After Enes Kanter’s Pro-Tibet Posts

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      The Boston center called China’s leader, Xi Jinping, a “brutal dictator” on social media, igniting an online backlash in the country. The N.B.A.’s online partner stopped streaming the team’s games.Boston Celtics games were abruptly pulled from the Chinese internet on Thursday after a center on the team, Enes Kanter, said on social media that the country’s leader, Xi Jinping, was a “brutal dictator,” citing his government’s repressive policies in Tibet.The incident could spell fresh trouble for the N.B.A. in China. The league has millions of devoted fans there but has also just spent two years mending its image in the country after a Houston Rockets executive tweeted support in 2019 for pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong.That tweet, by Daryl Morey, who now works for the Philadelphia 76ers, was quickly deleted, though not before setting off an uproar in China. Sponsors in the country severed ties and the state-run broadcaster stopped airing games, leading to financial fallout that the league estimated cost it hundreds of millions of dollars.Geopolitical tensions and rising nationalism have made China a minefield for multinational companies, whose access to the country’s 1.4 billion consumers is often contingent on not taking the “wrong” stance on issues such as Beijing’s rule in Hong Kong, Tibet and Xinjiang.Enes Kanter’s “Free Tibet” shoes.Sarah Stier/Getty ImagesAn N.B.A. representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment.In a video that was posted on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram on Wednesday, Kanter spoke into the camera for nearly three minutes and decried what he called a “cultural genocide” in Tibet.“I say, ‘Shame on the Chinese government,’” he said, wearing a T-shirt with the image of the Dalai Lama, whom Beijing considers a criminal separatist. “The Chinese dictatorship is erasing Tibetan identity and culture.”Another social media post by Kanter on Wednesday showed off sneakers emblazoned with Tibetan flag motifs and the words “Free Tibet.”By Thursday, recent Celtics games were marked as unavailable for replay through Tencent, the Chinese internet giant that has partnered with the N.B.A. to stream its games in the country. The website for Tencent Sports also indicated that upcoming Celtics games would not be livestreamed.Tencent Sports has not been livestreaming games involving the 76ers, either. The team hired Morey last year as president of basketball operations.A Tencent spokeswoman declined to comment.On the Chinese social platform Weibo, a Celtics fan account declared that it would immediately stop posting about the team.The account told its 615,000 Weibo followers: “Resolutely resist any behavior that damages national harmony and the dignity of the motherland!”China considers Tibet part of its historical empire, though the authorities have long confronted protests against their rule there. The Communist Party under Mr. Xi has intensified efforts to defray ethnic tensions by encouraging the region’s residents to assimilate into Chinese society and making Mandarin Chinese the dominant language in public life.Kanter, who is of Turkish heritage, has been an outspoken critic of Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Turkish prosecutors have sought Kanter’s arrest, and his Turkish passport has been revoked. He has expressed concern that Turkish agents might kill him overseas.Elsie Chen More

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      in Soccer

      In China's Super League, Everyone Seems to Be Losing

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      Chinese teams once embraced ambition and overspending in a bold attempt to reshape their sport. Now they don’t even play games.The emails and letters complaining about unpaid salaries have been stacking up for months.Some claim losses in the thousands of dollars. Others seek to recover quite a bit more. But a few of the pleas arriving at the Zurich offices of FIFA, soccer’s global governing body, like those involving a handful of well-known South American players, are in the millions.What the FIFA officials collecting the claims have noticed, though, is that a surprising number are coming from one place: players and coaches at clubs in China. And they fear the flow is about to get worse.China’s top soccer league — not so long ago heralded as the sport’s new frontier thanks to a half-decade of powerful support, ambitious owners and an era of untrammeled spending that lured top players with outsized salaries — is having an existential crisis. Companies that once spent tens of millions to acquire players now cannot pay their bills. China’s president, who once championed the sport, now faces far more serious priorities. And the country’s top division, the Super League, hasn’t played a game in months.“For sure, some issues like this have happened before,” said David Wu, a sports lawyer in Shanghai. “But not this size.”The shuttered training center at Jiangsu F.C., where acres of pristine fields now sit empty. Jia Shiqing/VCG via Getty ImagesMissing MoneyThe bad news trickled out in waves. In February, China’s defending champion, Jiangsu Suning F.C., was abruptly shuttered by the electronics retailer that owned it, less than four months after the team won the Super League championship.In the time it took to issue a news release, one of the country’s biggest clubs vaporized, leaving its players unpaid and bringing unwelcome attention to a project that had been one of the cornerstones of President Xi Jinping’s effort to transform China from a soccer backwater into one of its superpowers.The collapse at Jiangsu now appears to have been a harbinger of further trouble. The league season has been repeatedly interrupted to accommodate the World Cup qualifying schedule of China’s national team, and now will not resume until December. Until then, clubs will have little or no access to their best players.More recently, doubts have been raised about the continued viability of China’s most successful team, Guangzhou F.C. A cash crunch at its parent company, the real estate conglomerate Evergrande, is so severe that it poses a serious threat to the broader economy.Last week, the team agreed to part company with its coach, the Italian Fabio Cannavaro, one of the highest-paid managers in world soccer. Officials and players on other teams have also agreed to terminate long-term contracts with the understanding that they will be paid for salaries due.Fernando Martins and Renato Augusto, two Brazilian stars on the growing list of players who have filed complaints with FIFA, agreed to such a deal, with millions of dollars at stake. Each was released from his contract by their former club, Beijing Guoan, and they expected their first payments in August.The players say the money never arrived.Officials at FIFA’s dispute resolution chamber say they are analyzing the facts. They have the power to suspend clubs in any country from registering new signings until they have resolved unpaid salary debts. Some Chinese teams appear to be subject to such bans already: A recent report in China said Wuhan F.C., which is owned by another property group, Wuhan Zall Development Holding Co., has been suspended from acquiring new players.Guangzhou F.C. started construction on a 100,000-seat stadium last year. Now, with the club’s owner in financial meltdown, it’s unclear if the team has the money to finish it.Thomas Suen/ReutersThe Brazilian defender Miranda returned to São Paulo when his Chinese club, Jiangsu Suning, suddenly shut down in February.Alexandre Loureiro/ReutersThe Italian coach Fabio Cannavaro led Guangzhou to the Super League title in 2019. Last month, he and the club quietly parted ways.Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesYet penalties and transfer bans may not be enough to help others claw back what they are owed. The Brazilian defender Miranda was owed more than $10 million when Jiangsu Suning was closed down. His lawyers face the daunting task of navigating China’s complex legal system in their effort to recover the lost income.At least Miranda, 37, has been able to continue his career: He quickly landed a spot — and a rich new contract — at São Paulo, a team that plays in Brazil’s top division. Such an outcome is unlikely for the dozens of Chinese nationals who have gone unpaid or been cast off by their clubs in recent months.Understand China’s New EconomyCard 1 of 6An economic reshaping. More

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      in Soccer

      Inter Milan Is Threatened by Challenges at Suning, Its Chinese Owner

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      The storied Italian soccer club’s Chinese owners spent heavily on big stars, and now the it is winning again. But the bill is coming due, putting the team’s future in doubt.HONG KONG — The new, high-rolling Chinese owner was supposed to return Inter Milan to its glory days. It spent heavily on prolific scorers like Romelu Lukaku and Christian Eriksen. After five years of investment, the storied Milan soccer club is within striking distance of its first Italian league title in a decade.Now the bill has come due — and Inter Milan’s future is suddenly in doubt.Suning, an electronics retailer that is the club’s majority owner, is strapped for cash and trying to sell its stake. The club is bleeding money. Some of its players have agreed to defer payment, according to one person close to the club who requested anonymity because the information isn’t public.Inter Milan has held talks with at least one potential investor, but the parties couldn’t agree on a price, according to others with knowledge of the negotiations.Suning’s soccer aspirations are crumbling at home, too. The company abruptly shut down its domestic team four months after the club won China’s national championship. Some stars, many of whom chose to play there instead of in Chelsea or Liverpool, have said they have gone unpaid.China has failed in its dream of becoming a global player in the world’s most popular sport. Spurred in part by the ambitions of Xi Jinping, China’s top leader and an ardent soccer fan, a new breed of Chinese tycoons plowed billions of dollars into marquee clubs and star players, transforming the economics of the game. Chinese investors spent $1.8 billion acquiring stakes in more than a dozen European teams between 2015 and 2017, and China’s cash-soaked domestic league paid the largest salaries ever bestowed on overseas recruits.But the splurge exposed international soccer to the peculiarities of the Chinese business world. Deep involvement by the Communist Party make companies vulnerable to sharp shifts in the political winds. The free-spending tycoons often lacked international experience or sophistication.Now, talks of defaults, fire sales and hasty exits dominate discussions around boardroom tables. A mining magnate lost control of A.C. Milan amid questions about his business empire. The owner of a soap maker and food additive company gave up his stake in Aston Villa. An energy conglomerate shed its stake in Slavia Prague after its founder disappeared.Suning’s plight reflects “the whole rise and fall of this era of Chinese football,” said Zhe Ji, the director of Red Lantern, a sports marketing company that works in China for top European soccer teams. “When people were talking about Chinese football and all the attention it got in 2016, it came very fast, but it’s gone very fast, too.”Suning paid $306 million in 2016 for a major stake in Inter Milan. Suning is a household name in China, with stores stocked with computers, iPads and rice cookers for the country’s growing middle class. While it has been hurt by China’s e-commerce revolution, it counts Alibaba, the online shopping titan, as a major investor.On a brightly lit stage to announce the Inter Milan deal, Zhang Jindong, Suning’s billionaire founder and chairman, raised a champagne glass and talked about how the famous Italian team — which has won 18 championships since 1910 but none since 2010 — would help his brand internationally and contribute to China’s sports industry.Boasting about Suning’s “abundant resources,” Mr. Zhang promised the club would “return to its glory days and become a stronger property able to attract top stars from across the globe.”Zhang Jindong, right, Suning’s chairman and founder, with his son, Steven Zhang, at a match in Italy in 2017. Suning put Inter Milan’s stars  to work selling air-conditioners and washing machines.Claudio Villa – Inter/FC Internazionale via Getty ImagesUnder the leadership of Mr. Zhang’s son, Steven Zhang, now 29, the club spent more than $300 million on stars like Lukaku, Eriksen and Lautaro Martínez, an Argentine forward nicknamed The Bull for his relentless pursuit of goals.Suning also agreed to pay $700 million to England’s Premier League for the rights to broadcast games in China beginning in 2019, stunning the industry.Suning lavished money on a domestic club that it bought in 2015. It spent $32 million to acquire Ramires, a Brazilian midfielder, from Chelsea, and 50 million euros for Alex Teixeira, a young Brazilian attacker, who chose the Chinese team over Liverpool, one of soccer’s most popular franchises.The recruits were put to work selling air-conditioners and washing machines. In one advertisement, Mr. Teixeira urged viewers to buy a Chinese brand of appliances. “I am Teixeira,” he says in Mandarin, adding, “come to Suning to buy Haier.”The money, said Mubarak Wakaso, a Ghanaian midfielder, helped make China attractive. “The money that I’m going to make in China is far better than La Liga,” he said in a mix of Twi and English in an interview last year, citing the league in Spain where he once played. “I’m not telling lies.”Suning’s soccer bets were badly timed. The Chinese government began to worry that big conglomerates were borrowing too heavily, threatening the country’s financial system. One year after the Inter Milan deal, Chinese state media criticized Suning for its “irrational” acquisition.Then the pandemic hit. Even as Inter Milan won on the field, it lost gate receipts from its San Siro stadium, one of the largest in Europe. Some sponsors walked away because their own financial pressures. The club lost about $120 million last year, one of the biggest losses reported by a European soccer club.Back in China, Suning was slammed by e-commerce as well as the coronavirus. Its troubles accelerated in the autumn when it chose not to demand repayment of a $3 billion investment in Evergrande, a property developer and China’s most indebted company.Suning’s burden is set to get heavier. This year, it must make $1.2 billion in bond payments. The company declined to comment.Suning began to take drastic steps. Last year it abandoned its broadcasting deal with the Premier League.Jiangsu Suning players celebrate winning the Chinese Super League football championship last year. The team was shut down four months after the win.Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThen, in February, it shut down its domestic team, Jiangsu Suning, nearly four months after the team won China’s Super League title against an Evergrande-controlled team. At least one of the team’s foreign recruits has hired lawyers to help recoup unpaid salary, according to a person involved in the matter.One former Suning player, Eder, a Brazilian-born star forward, set the soccer world buzzing after media reports quoted him saying Suning had not paid him. On Twitter, Eder said the comments had been taken from a private, online chat without his permission. His agent did not respond to requests for comment.To save itself, Suning took a step that could complicate Inter Milan’s fortunes. On March 1, it sold $2.3 billion worth of its shares to affiliates of the government of the Chinese city of Shenzhen. The deal gave Chinese authorities a say in Inter Milan’s fate.Greater financial pressure looms for Inter Milan. It must pay out a $360 million bond next year. A minority investor in Hong Kong, Lion Rock Capital, which acquired a 31 percent stake in Inter in 2019, could exercise an option that would require Suning to buy its stake for as much as $215 million, according to one of the people close to the club.Inter Milan officials are looking for financing, a new partner or a sale of the team at a valuation of about $1.1 billion, the person said.The club until recently was in exclusive talks with BC Partners, the British private equity firm, but they were unable to agree on price, said people with knowledge of the talks.Without fresh capital, Inter Milan could lose players. If it can’t pay salaries or transfer fees for departing players, European soccer rules say it could be banished from top competitions.“We are concerned but we are not frightened yet about this situation — we are just waiting for the news,” said Manuel Corti, a member of an Inter Milan supporters club based in London.“Being Inter fans,” he said, “we are never sure of anything until the last minute.”Alexandra Stevenson More