Even as Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai appeared on a video call with the Olympics chief, the former vice premier she accused of sexual assault has stayed silent and out of sight – maintaining the veil of secrecy that shrouds China’s political elite.
Zhang Gaoli, who turns 75 this month, was accused by the former Olympian in a Nov. 2 social media post of coercing her into sex three years ago. Peng said she and Zhang, who was vice premier when Beijing was awarded the upcoming Winter Games, had conducted an on-off consensual relationship until he broke up with her.
Her post was deleted soon after it was published and the topic has been blocked online in China. But when she vanished from public view for nearly three weeks, international concern for her safety was ignited, accompanied by the #WhereIsPengShuai hashtag.
Peng, 35, made a series of appearances over the past weekend, including a video call with International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach, but they have failed to dispel doubts among fellow athletes and global organisations over her welfare. Amnesty International accused the IOC and Bach of taking part in a “whitewash of possible human rights violations” by China ahead of the Games in February.
Less attention has focused on Zhang, who retired in 2018 and like nearly all top Chinese leaders stays out of the public eye in retirement. He and the Chinese government have not directly commented on Peng’s claims, which Reuters has been unable to verify.
China’s State Council Information Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and has not commented on Peng’s post or made Zhang available for comment.
“Letting Zhang come out to speak will result in a reputational loss that it doesn’t want just before the Winter Games,” said Alfred Wu, associate professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore.
“Even if the party does decide to take internal disciplinary action against Zhang, they won’t announce it right away, but will wait for the storm to blow over first, so as to show strength,” he added.
TIANJIN BOSS
Zhang’s last appearance was on July 1, when he was seated on the southern ramparts of the Forbidden City in Beijing for the 100th anniversary of the founding of China’s ruling Communist Party. The site is not far from the Great Hall of the People where six years earlier he made a “solemn commitment” to a successful Winter Games at the Beijing Olympic Organising Committee’s launch ceremony.
From 2007 to 2012，Zhang was the top political leader in the city of Tianjin. Under his watch, the once run-down provincial-level metropolis southeast of Beijing became China’s fastest growing region in 2011.
As ranking vice premier from 2013 to 2018, he was in charge of economic matters, including President Xi Jinping’s signature Belt and Road initiative, and headed a “leading small group” overseeing the Winter Olympics before handing over to current vice premier Han Zheng in 2018.
In 2016, he met with Bach himself, telling the IOC boss that work was being done to “make sure the 2022 Beijing Winter Games are fantastic, extraordinary and excellent,” according to a report on the English-language website of the Chinese government.
Peng alleged in her Weibo post that she first met Zhang and had sex with him in Tianjin. She said that soon after Zhang retired, he got in touch again through a sports doctor and rekindled the relationship.
“You stopped contacting me after you were promoted to Beijing. I had wanted to bury everything inside my heart. Since you don’t intend to take responsibility, why did you still look for me, and force me to have sex with you at your house?” she wrote.
Peng also alleged in her post that Zhang’s wife, Kang Jie, knew about the relationship. As with wives of most of China’s political leaders, very little is known about Kang, including her age. The couple have a son.
HISTORY OF SILENCE
Zhang’s silence is consistent with how party leaders have dealt in the past with allegations ranging from corruption accusations in the Panama Papers to rumours of extramarital affairs, experts say.
Making a sweeping campaign to root out corruption a hallmark of his nine-year tenure, Xi has demanded that party officials “be able to pass the toughest tests” of political, professional and family morals.
Zhang’s only option is silence, according to Chen Daoyin, formerly an associate professor at Shanghai University of Political Science and Law and now based in Chile, where he has been closely following the case.
“If he denies, he won’t be credible, because as a result of Xi’s anti-corruption campaign, now everyone in China knows it is common for Chinese officials to use power for sex,” Chen said.
Typically, accusations of sexual misconduct by officials are only mentioned after an investigation for political or economic crimes, almost added as an aggravating factor.
Having struggled to gain traction, China’s #MeToo movement has come under fresh focus following the Peng case. No high-level party official has been similarly accused as Zhang.
“The party sees itself as above the law and is not accountable to anyone other than its leaders,” said Wu Qiang, a Beijing-based author, formerly with Tsinghua University.
“If he admits to Peng’s allegation, then Peng could become a symbol that China’s feminist movement can rally around, which can potentially pose a challenge to the power of the party,” said Chen, the former associate professor at Shanghai University of Political Science and Law.
(This story corrects attribution in quote to Chen, not Wu, in last paragraph)
(Reporting by Yew Lun Tian; Editing by Tony Munroe, Simon Cameron-Moore, Leela de Kretser and Sonya Hepinstall)
Montreal Alouettes wide receiver Tyson Philpot has announced he will be out for the rest of the CFL season.
The Delta, B.C., native posted the news on his Instagram page Thursday.
“To Be Continued. Shoutout my team, the fans of the CFL and the whole city of Montreal! I can’t wait to be back healthy and write this next chapter in 2025,” the statement read.
Philpot, 24, injured his foot in a 33-23 win over the Hamilton Tiger-Cats on Aug. 10 and was placed on the six-game injured list the next week.
The six-foot-one, 195-pound receiver had 58 receptions, 779 yards and five touchdowns in nine games for the league-leading Alouettes in his third season.
Philpot scored the game-winning touchdown in Montreal’s Grey Cup win last season to punctuate a six-reception, 63-yard performance.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. (AP) — Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa sustained a concussion for the third time in his NFL career, leaving his team’s game Thursday night against Buffalo after running into defensive back Damar Hamlin and hitting the back of his head against the turf.
Tagovailoa remained down for about two minutes before getting to his feet and walking to the sideline after the play in the third quarter. He made his way to the tunnel not long afterward, looking into the stands before smiling and departing toward the locker room.
The Dolphins needed almost no time before announcing it was a concussion. The team said he had two during the 2022 season, and Tagovailoa was diagnosed with another concussion when he was a college player at Alabama.
Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel said Tagovailoa would get “proper procedural evaluation” and “appropriate care” on Friday.
“The furthest thing from my mind is, ‘What is the timeline?’ We just need to evaluate and just worry about my teammate, like the rest of the guys are,” McDaniel said. “We’ll get more information tomorrow and take it day by day from here.”
Some players saw Tagovailoa in the locker room after the game and said they were encouraged. Tagovailoa spoke with some players and then went home after the game, McDaniel said.
“I have a lot of love for Tua, built a great relationship with him,” said quarterback Skylar Thompson, who replaced Tagovailoa after the injury. “You care about the person more than the player and everybody in the organization would say the same thing. Just really praying for Tua and hopefully everything will come out all right.”
Tagovailoa signed a four-year, $212 million extension before this season — a deal that makes him one of the highest-paid players in the NFL — and was the NFL’s leading passer in Week 1 this season. Tagovailoa left with the Dolphins trailing 31-10, and that was the final score.
“If you know Tua outside of football, you can’t help but feel for him,” Bills quarterback Josh Allen said on Amazon following the game. “He’s a great football player but he’s an even greater human being. He’s one of the best humans on the planet. I’ve got a lot of love for him and I’m just praying for him and his family, hoping everything’s OK. But it’s tough, man. This game of football that we play, it’s got its highs and it’s got its lows — and this is one of the lows.”
Tagovailoa’s college years and first three NFL seasons were marred by injury, though he positioned himself for a big pay bump with an injury-free and productive 2023 as he led the Dolphins into the playoffs. He threw for 29 touchdowns and a league-best 4,624 yards last year.
When, or if, he can come back this season is anyone’s guess. Tagovailoa said in April 2023 that the concussions he had in the 2022 season left him contemplating his playing future. “I think I considered it for a time,” he said then, when asked if he considered stepping away from the game to protect himself.
McDaniel said it’s not his place to say if Tagovailoa should return to football. “He’ll be evaluated and we’ll have conversations and progress as appropriate,” McDaniel said.
Tagovailoa was hurt Thursday on a fourth-down keeper with about 4:30 left in the third. He went straight ahead into Hamlin and did not slide, leading with his right shoulder instead.
Hamlin was the player who suffered a cardiac arrest after making a tackle during a Monday night game in January 2023 at Cincinnati, causing the NFL to suspend a pivotal game that quickly lost significance in the aftermath of a scary scene that unfolded in front of a national television audience.
Tagovailoa wound up on his back, both his hands in the air and Bills players immediately pointed at him as if to suggest there was an injury. Dolphins center Aaron Brewer quickly did the same, waving to the sideline.
Tagovailoa appeared to be making a fist with his right hand as he lay on the ground. It was movement consistent with something that is referred to as the “fencing response,” which can be common after a traumatic brain injury.
Tagovailoa eventually got to his feet. McDaniel grabbed the side of his quarterback’s head and gave him a kiss on the cheek as Tagovailoa departed. Thompson came into the game to take Tagovailoa’s spot.
“I love Tua on and off the football field,” Bills edge Von Miller said. “I’m a huge fan of him. I can empathize and sympathize with him because I’ve been there. I wish him the best.”
Tagovailoa’s history with concussions — and how he has since worked to avoid them — is a huge part of the story of his career, and now comes to the forefront once again.
He had at least two concussions during the 2022 season. He was hurt in a Week 3 game against Buffalo and cleared concussion protocol, though he appeared disoriented on that play but returned to the game.
The NFL later changed its concussion protocol to mandate that if a player shows possible concussion symptoms — including a lack of balance or stability — he must sit out the rest of the game.
Less than a week later, in a Thursday night game at Cincinnati, Tagovailoa was concussed on a scary hit that briefly knocked him unconscious and led to him being taken off the field on a stretcher.
His second known concussion of that season came in a December game against Green Bay, and he didn’t play for the rest of the 2022 season. After that, Tagovailoa began studying ways where he may be able to fall more safely and protect himself against further injury — including studying jiu-jitsu.
“I’m not worried about anything that’s out of my hands,” McDaniel said. “I’m just worried about the human being.”
NEW YORK (AP) — When her husband turns on the television to hear news about the upcoming presidential election, that’s often a signal for Lori Johnson Malveaux to leave the room.
It can get to be too much. Often, she’ll go to a TV in another room to watch a movie on the Hallmark Channel or BET. She craves something comforting and entertaining. And in that, she has company.
While about half of Americans say they are following political news “extremely” or “very” closely, about 6 in 10 say they need to limit how much information they consume about the government and politics to avoid feeling overloaded or fatigued, according to a new survey from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and USAFacts.
Make no mistake: Malveaux plans to vote. She always does. “I just get to the point where I don’t want to hear the rhetoric,” she said.
The 54-year-old Democrat said she’s most bothered when she hears people on the news telling her that something she saw with her own eyes — like the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol — didn’t really happen.
“I feel like I’m being gaslit. That’s the way to put it,” she said.
Sometimes it feels like ‘a bombardment’
Caleb Pack, 23, a Republican from Ardmore, Oklahoma, who works in IT, tries to keep informed through the news feeds on his phone, which is stocked with a variety of sources, including CNN, Fox News, The Wall Street Journal and The Associated Press.
Yet sometimes, Pack says, it seems like a bombardment.
“It’s good to know what’s going on, but both sides are pulling a little bit extreme,” he said. “It just feels like it’s a conversation piece everywhere, and it’s hard to escape it.”
Media fatigue isn’t a new phenomenon. A Pew Research Center survey conducted in late 2019 found roughly two in three Americans felt worn out by the amount of news there is, about the same as in a poll taken in early 2018. During the 2016 presidential campaign, about 6 in 10 people felt overloaded by campaign news.
But it can be particularly acute with news related to politics. The AP-NORC/USAFacts poll found that half of Americans feel a need to limit their consumption of information related to crime or overseas conflicts, while only about 4 in 10 are limiting news about the economy and jobs.
It’s easy to understand, with television outlets like CNN, Fox News Channel and MSNBC full of political talk and a wide array of political news online, sometimes complicated by disinformation.
“There’s a glut of information,” said Richard Coffin, director of research and advocacy for USAFacts, “and people are having a hard time figuring out what is true or not.”
Women are more likely to feel they need to limit media
In the AP-NORC poll, about 6 in 10 men said they follow news about elections and politics at least “very” closely, compared to about half of women. For all types of news, not just politics, women are more likely than men to report the need to limit their media consumption, the survey found.
White adults are also more likely than Black or Hispanic adults to say they need to limit media consumption on politics, the poll found.
Kaleb Aravzo, 19, a Democrat, gets a baseline of news by listening to National Public Radio in the morning at home in Logan, Utah. Too much politics, particularly when he’s on social media sites like TikTok and Instagram, can trigger anxiety and depression.
“If it pops up on my page when I’m on social media,” he said, “I’ll just scroll past it.”
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Sanders reported from Washington. David Bauder writes about media for the AP. Follow him at http://x.com/dbauder.
The AP poll of 1,019 adults was conducted July 29-August 8, 2024, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.0 percentage points.
