BEIJING (AP) — The drama surrounding Peng Shuai is following a familiar script, in which someone who has run afoul of China‘
BEIJING (AP) — The drama surrounding Peng Shuai is following a familiar script, in which someone who has run afoul of China’s Communist government disappears from view. What happens next depends on the case, but it is not uncommon for the person in question to disavow the statements or actions that first upset officials. Other times, the person simply keeps a lower profile. Sometimes, their arrest is eventually announced. Peng’s saga began in November, when she wrote in a social media post that a former member of the party’s all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee had forced her to have sex three years ago despite repeated refusals. Her post also said they had sex once seven years ago, and she had feelings for him after that. The post was quickly taken down and the former top-ranked doubles player dropped out of public view late last year. After she reappeared weeks later, she denied to a Singapore newspaper that she ever made any accusation of sexual assault. I n an interview published Monday by a French sports paper, she called the whole situation an “enormous misunderstanding.” Here’s a look at a some other people who have disappeared over the years — a phenomenon that has expanded since President Xi Jinping came to power in 2013: ___ JACK MA Among the most high-profile recent disappearances was that of Ma, the founder of Alibaba Group, the world’s biggest e-commerce company. Ma, China’s most prominent entrepreneur, stopped appearing in public after he criticized regulators as being too conservative in an October 2020 speech. Days later, the government ordered Ma’s Ant Group, a financial service that grew out of Alibaba’s online payments business, to suspend a planned stock market debut in Hong Kong and Shanghai.
