General Tennis Discussions

[prasen9]

China may do a soft squeeze. That means they will stop funding Shuai, ask all Chinese companies to withdraw endorsements, make it hard for her to get approvals for anything, e.g., building/buying a house, start or make false allegations of tax evasion and just harass her in court and make her spend a lot of money fighting to clear her name, etc. even if it does not resort to physical torture, kidnapping, etc.

To be fair, China has tried to tackle corruption among government officials. And generally may have taken action in this case. So, they have cleaned up their act and their air literally a lot. Except that the guy seems to be connected at the high level of the party. In which case, it seems they will do nothing.

[arjun2761]

The Chinese judiciary isn't independent at all. The judges are completely under the control of the CCP as is the administration. It would be foolish for her to go to the courts, and I doubt if she would waste her time and money doing that.

[suresh]

... But, that did not work. We had had enough and withdrew the paper. The pain is that we now have to go through another set of reviews and edits to finally get the paper published but after a point you have to stand up for scientific integrity.

Well done Prasen.

[suresh]

In related news, Kanter has called out Lebron James and Nike for not standing up to China. Daryl Morey, then GM of the Houston Rockets, tweeted something about Uighurs in China. The Chinese promptly blocked all games by the Houston Rockets and the flexible and spineless NBA management got Morey to delete the tweet. I think games played the Boston Celtics (where Kanter warms the bench during games) are blacked out in China. These are cases of China's financial clout being used to arm twist people to fall in line with their world view.

[jayakris]

Now, the state media posts three pictures of her... Ridiculous.

Update. Peng Shuai: Still no direct contact with Chinese player after sex assault claims - WTA (BBC)

[jayakris]

Update: Peng Shuai will make a public appearance soon: influential state-media editor

Haha. Didn't we know it? China will "produce her" and she will refute everything, of course.

[Sanjay]

The world these days is so afraid of China. USA, India, Muslim countries, everyone.

Looks like they've bought everyone.

[Kumar]

Seriously China is the sole superpower today! They make the rules ! They have the power and there is nothing US or any of the western countries can do.

The interesting thing is that China is expanding its territorial grab by signing favorable infrastructure projects with stringent loan default options. Their power is only going to grow.

China recently did this,but none of the muslim countries condemn this.



Just goes to show that no one messes with authoritarian govt that has power.

[jayakris]

^^ Nah, I don't think it is at that level just yet (IMHO). The world is no longer so damn reliant on China, and will not be overly reliant on them for too long. China overplayed their cards a little too early, and will pay for it. Right now they can get away with a lot, though. The rest of the world is not stupid to that extent, though China did fool the world for quite some time. It will be slowly downhill from now on, and China kinda knows it.

[prasen9]

The Chinese judiciary isn't independent at all. The judges are completely under the control of the CCP as is the administration. It would be foolish for her to go to the courts, and I doubt if she would waste her time and money doing that.

Well, no judiciary is independent. The idea of an independent judiciary is ridiculous nonsense. The Supreme Court judges in this country are under the control of the GOP irrespective of what Roberts, Brewer, Barrett, Alito proclaim. A guy who shot and killed two people with a gun that he had no business having and going into a different state to create trouble walked scott-free just yesterday in this country because he was white and because of gun politics in this country. No country has courts that are totally fair and free. Snowden pointed out rampant lawlessness and he is the one who is living in exile because the political establishment wants to suppress those crimes. Yes, there are variations wrt the level of corruption and all countries are not the same. But, anyway. She will not go to court. This guy was #2 or so. So, it won't work. What I was saying is that China has tried to not defend the lowest rung of the party at the lower courts at all costs more recently whereas they used to do so regularly say 5-10 years ago. So corruption at the lower levels is being tackled somewhat. But, this being the #2 in the politburo or so, don't expect anything to happen to the guy.

[jayakris]

China has possibly threatened her family with serious repercussions, and/or given her so much money that she can't refuse to play along (basically no choice). She will be brought on TV to say this: "It must have been a prank by somebody. I had not posted that and I respect Mr. BIgWig who has been such a help for me all through my career. I had to go away for 3 weeks from all public contacts, because the court system required me to not comment when the matter was under criminal investigation" blah blah. She will thank the other players and everybody who were concerned about her, and even thank the Chinese Government for taking the #metoo matter seriously and investigating the prank immediately. China knows how to do this!

(But this will be more than what they have done for similar disappearances in the past, including of powerful people like the Alibaba founder. This was a much more serious thing and the world was going to react. But I expected China to take care of this quickly, after underestimating the world reaction for a short while. That is what I see happening)

[arjun2761]

Jay, I think you have a good read on how this will play out. Shuai Peng will survive this because of international pressure but she knows that there will be serious consequences to both her and her family if she continues to publicly embarrass the party (CCP).

With respect to the ivory tower rant against the US judiciary, most of us understand that there are human and political biases in all human run systems. The US judicial system has its biases but is actually fairer than most other judicial systems. In China, it isn't a question of bias, it is a question of power. If a judge in a Chinese court displeases the CCP, he will disappear just as soon quickly as Peng and of course no one will know or care about him. In every state, the top admin and judicial official know that they serve at the mercy of the local CCP chief....

[Atithee]

Missing tennis star Peng Shuai reappears in video from China event
By Joe McDonald
Updated November 21, 2021 — 4.37pmfirst published at 2.20pm

https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/video ... 59aqp.html

[Atithee]

[Atithee]

This has the second video.

https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/video ... 59aox.html