The UN yesterday said it wants proof of the whereabouts of Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai (彭帥), missing ever since she made sexual assault allegations against a former Chinese vice premier.
The UN Human Rights Office called for a fully transparent investigation into the former Grand Slam doubles champion’s claims against Chinese vice premier Zhang Gaoli (張高麗), while the head of the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) said he is prepared to cut lucrative business ties with China if Peng remains unaccounted for and her allegations are not investigated.
“It would be important to have proof of her whereabouts and well-being and we would urge that there be an investigation with full transparency into her allegations of sexual assault,” Liz Throssell, a spokeswoman for UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet, told reporters in Geneva, Switzerland.
Photo: AP
Peng, 35, who won the Wimbledon and the French Open women’s doubles titles with Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei (謝淑薇), alleged on Sina Weibo on Nov. 2 that Zhang had “forced” her into sex during a long-term, on-off relationship.
The claims were quickly scrubbed from the platform and she has not been seen since, drawing mounting concern over her well-being.
Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Zhao Lijian (趙立堅) yesterday stuck to the government’s line that it was not aware of the controversy surrounding Peng.
Zhao again said it was “not a diplomatic question and I’m not aware of the situation.”
The ministry has consistently disavowed knowledge of the issue since Peng made her accusation more than two weeks ago.
WTA chairman Steve Simon on Thursday told CNN that he is willing to lose hundreds of millions of dollars in Chinese business in one of the organization’s biggest markets to ensure Peng’s safety.
“We’re definitely willing to pull our business and deal with all the complications that come with it,” Simon said.
“Women need to be respected and not censored,” he added.
Meanwhile, Serena Williams on Thursday joined Naomi Osaka and Novak Djokovic in drawing attention to the case.
“I am devastated and shocked to hear about the news of my peer, Peng Shuai,” former world No. 1 Williams wrote on Twitter.
“I hope she is safe and found as soon as possible. This must be investigated and we must not stay silent,” she said.
Williams’ tweet was accompanied by a photograph of a smiling Peng captioned with #WhereIsPengShuai.
Peng also competed in three Olympics, making her disappearance all the more prominent with Beijing set to host the Winter Games starting on Feb. 4
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) declined to comment yesterday, saying in an e-mailed statement: “Experience shows that quiet diplomacy offers the best opportunity to find a solution for questions of such nature. This explains why the IOC will not comment any further at this stage.”
Additional reporting by AP
AGING: As of last month, people aged 65 or older accounted for 20.06 percent of the total population and the number of couples who got married fell by 18,685 from 2024 Taiwan has surpassed South Korea as the country least willing to have children, with an annual crude birthrate of 4.62 per 1,000 people, Ministry of the Interior data showed yesterday. The nation was previously ranked the second-lowest country in terms of total fertility rate, or the average number of children a woman has in her lifetime. However, South Korea’s fertility rate began to recover from 2023, with total fertility rate rising from 0.72 and estimated to reach 0.82 to 0.85 by last year, and the crude birthrate projected at 6.7 per 1,000 people. Japan’s crude birthrate was projected to fall below six,
Conflict with Taiwan could leave China with “massive economic disruption, catastrophic military losses, significant social unrest, and devastating sanctions,” a US think tank said in a report released on Monday. The German Marshall Fund released a report titled If China Attacks Taiwan: The Consequences for China of “Minor Conflict” and “Major War” Scenarios. The report details the “massive” economic, military, social and international costs to China in the event of a minor conflict or major war with Taiwan, estimating that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) could sustain losses of more than half of its active-duty ground forces, including 100,000 troops. Understanding Chinese
US President Donald Trump in an interview with the New York Times published on Thursday said that “it’s up to” Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) what China does on Taiwan, but that he would be “very unhappy” with a change in the “status quo.” “He [Xi] considers it to be a part of China, and that’s up to him what he’s going to be doing, but I’ve expressed to him that I would be very unhappy if he did that, and I don’t think he’ll do that. I hope he doesn’t do that,” Trump said. Trump made the comments in the context
SELF-DEFENSE: Tokyo has accelerated its spending goal and its defense minister said the nation needs to discuss whether it should develop nuclear-powered submarines China is ramping up objections to what it sees as Japan’s desire to acquire nuclear weapons, despite Tokyo’s longstanding renunciation of such arms, deepening another fissure in the two neighbors’ increasingly tense ties. In what appears to be a concerted effort, China’s foreign and defense ministries issued statements on Thursday condemning alleged remilitarism efforts by Tokyo. The remarks came as two of the country’s top think tanks jointly issued a 29-page report framing actions by “right-wing forces” in Japan as posing a “serious threat” to world peace. While that report did not define “right-wing forces,” the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs was
RSS