Peng shuai

Saturday

Jawad Iqbal

Shame on those who abandoned Peng Shuai

From our UK edition

No one really expects much in the way of principles or morality from those charged with running international sport. The Qatar World Cup was merely the latest, most blatant example of the iron rule that money and greed conquers all in sport. But for a brief moment — 16 months to be precise — the Women’s Tennis Association appeared to offer hope of something better. The WTA announced to the world in December 2021 that it would indefinitely boycott all tournaments in China over the regime’s treatment of tennis star, Peng Shuai, who vanished after making allegations of sexual assault against a senior politician.

Thursday

Taki

The crazy, corrupt world of the Beijing Olympics

From our UK edition

Gstaad OK sport fans, have you been enjoying the concentration camp Olympics? I’m sure the Uighurs in the Chinese gulag are riveted, especially watching the downhill, the trouble being that most of the one million Muslim prisoners have been issued with Equatorial Guinea-made TV sets, apparatuses that only show crocodiles swallowing humans. Joe Biden, in the meantime, has steered clear of the Games and has sent a message via pigeon to the Chinese: ‘You’re way out of line as far as King Kong is concerned and unless you sign the Schleswig-Holstein agreement do not expect any Americans to attend the première of Madame Butterfly.

Tuesday

Ian Williams

China breaks new records in the Surveillance Olympics

From our UK edition

Never before have the participants in a major sporting event been so closely monitored as in this Winter Olympics in Beijing. The 1980 Summer Olympics in Soviet Moscow were nothing in comparison. Athletes are competing under a blanket of observation, ostensibly to keep Covid at bay, yet imposed by a paranoid Communist party for whom critical words or thoughts are as dangerous as any virus. Everyone attending the games, including athletes, support staff and media, must install on their phones an app, My 2022, which harvests a wide range of personal data. It has the ability to censor and track its users, according to cybersecurity experts who have examined the app. The app is used to submit health information such as Covid test results and vaccination status.

peng shuai
Stephen L. Miller

Our media helps China hush up the Peng Shuai scandal

The media showering that China has received during the Beijing Winter Olympics has been both a national and international disgrace. NBC has been tiptoeing around how the Games are being held in the shadow of Uighur concentration camps, while athletes describe horrid living conditions including food that makes Fyre Festival’s cuisine look like a gourmet meal. But almost nothing compares to Western outlets repeating Chinese Communist Party talking points over the coerced interview confession that Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai gave to the French magazine L’Equipe this weekend. Late last year, Shuai accused a former senior CCP official, Zhang Gaol, of sexual assault in a social media post.

Monday

Peter Van Buren

Drinking your way through the Chinese Olympics

The thing I am looking forward to the least right now is the Olympics, and I have a colonoscopy scheduled. The only answer is a drinking game. Enough with "politics by sportscasters for those who only care about politics." I threw away my Mao (and Che) T-shirts sophomore year. We all know Beijing is not a democratic regime. So for some sort of balance, can we all agree that for every hundred references to the Uighurs, Tibet and Hong Kong, we make one to where and how Covid all began? Or will the mainstream media continue their coverage détente? Bottoms up for every reference to bats, pangolins and Chinese wet markets. Speaking of Covid, a drink every time announcers insist China's Covid crackdown is autocratic draconianism while ignoring that much of the same was done in America.

Sunday

Emily de La Bruyere

Boycott the 2022 China Olympics

Anything short of a full boycott of the 2022 Beijing Olympics is an abdication of America’s responsibilities and a rejection of its values. Dispatching athletes to China in February would also violate the Olympic spirit. In a November 2 social media post, three-time Olympian Peng Shuai accused former Chinese vice premier Zhang Gaoli of sexual assault. That post was deleted within minutes and Peng promptly disappeared. The Chinese government has clearly seized control of her and her whereabouts, while Chinese state media has taken control of her story, releasing an email, purportedly from Peng, rescinding her allegations. It's also published photos, purportedly from her friends’ social media, as claimed evidence that she is happy and healthy.

Saturday

Cindy Yu

Peng Shuai appears in sinister ‘proof of life’ video

From our UK edition

The Chinese tennis player Peng Shuai sits in a crowded restaurant surrounded by friends and her coach, who is going through next year’s training plan with her. ‘Tomorrow is November 20th’, he says, in a seeming non-sequitur. ‘No, tomorrow is the 21st’, one of her friends corrects him. ‘Oh yes, oh yes, the 21st’.  This bizarre scene takes place in a new video released by several state-sources in China this afternoon, with one source even tagging the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA), Wimbledon, Novak Djokovic, Marin Cillic and others on Twitter. https://twitter.com/li_ding1/status/1462083212402835459?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw This is hysterical amateurism – but all the more sinister for it The message of the video is clear.