What Peng Shuai reveals about one-party rule

The CCP has some 100,000,000 active members and >90% domestic approval rate. You simply cannot decouple it from "China" in any meaningful social, political, or economic manner without resorting to boring Orientalist/"white savior" narratives.

It's also great that WTA does not depend on Chinese market, so they won't sustain too much of loss by antagonizing Chinese authority. On the other hand, look at NBA. The righteous American conscience, the one and the only King James, kisses up to China to no end.

I posted that and I'm 0% Chinese. What do you think is unreasonable about the comment? Isn't it true that nothing done to prove that she is fine has been accepted?

(Part 1) Here's where the original translation becomes relevant: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29344036

Specifically, there are doubts on whether it's a rape charge at all. See the translation discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29344244

One possible interpretation of the main point of the post is that it was venting about Zhao having left her and played with her feelings.

Her social media accounts being censored, plus the fact[1] that the WTA chair said that he couldn't reach her, made the WTA and western journalists suspect that she "disappeared", i.e. in jail or dead.

The problem with the "censorship + WTA non-contact -> disappeared" reasoning are as follows:

1. Censorship in China is not about removing posts that criticize the government. Censorship is applied equally on praises and criticisms of the state. What actually determines whether a post gets censored is whether the post has collective action potential, e.g. whether it can get out of control and cause social unrest. Chinese authorities do not want a post to cause mass protests on the streets or things like that. Posts critical of the state are not censored as long as they have no collective action potential, i.e. they don't go viral. This is corroborated by Harvard research: https://gking.harvard.edu/publications/how-censorship-china-...

2. Censorship is not related to jailing offenders. They're orthogonal. The Chinese government is actually very responsive to criticisms, in the sense that they regularly actually change policies in response to criticisms. It is not uncommon for criticisms to be censored and listened to at the same time. See expat Cyrus Janssen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqcScSCTgbM

3. Chinese have high trust in their government, between 93% and 98%. These are not fake government numbers: they're measured by Harvard and York University through thousands of participants and anonymous surveys. See https://ash.harvard.edu/files/ash/files/final_policy_brief_7... and https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/05/05/did-pande...

4. "Disappearances" in the sense of not appearing publicly (instead of the Soviet/Mao-era sense of being kidnapped into jail) is common if someone was caught for violating a law, and at the same time there is potential for a major scandal. Celebrity Fan Bingbing is a good case. Jack Ma is another case. In all these cases, the person in question is not in danger in the sense of being tortured in a prison. It's taking in for questioning with a gag order (and depending on the severity of the case, a house arrest) until it's over — a practice which is not unique to China. Both Jack Ma and Fan Bingbing never "disappeared" as in being jailed — they all appeared publicly later on, and then information is released on what happened. Fan Bingbing was caught for evading tax. Jack Ma's example was not so much "the Party punished him for criticizing the state". It was more like a stern talk: "Mr Ma we are a socialist country, you can't just pump money into a big pyramid scheme which only benefits you for a short while after which the bubble bursts. Restructure your company and make sure it actually works for the benefit of the people". I'm not sure in which instance there was a gag order and in which instance the people involved voluntarily decided to lie low. But voluntarily lying low is not at all an uncommon practice during a major scandal involving a celebrity. In all these cases, after their reappearance (and a public announcement of the punishment), the situation is considered solved. Jack Ma is now vacationing in Europe and Fan Bingbing is making movies again.

Given these points, Chinese people at large don't believe at all that she's "disappeared" in the Soviet/Mao-era sense. They don't believe that she's ever been in danger. My relatives don't even believe that she's silenced. "What, why would they silence or catch her? She didn't do anything illegal. If she wants to file a rape charge, the police will help her."

Anti-corruption is a thing in China nowadays. Even though western media frames anti-corruption purely as an excuse to purge political opponents, Chinese don't believe so. They have faith in it because it has actually produced results. Thus, Chinese have high trust in their police w.r.t. catching corrupt officials. People trust that if Zhang is truly guilty, then he will be convicted, even if he has a lot of power. It isn't the first time that a corrupt but powerful high official was convicted, and it won't be the last time.

Why Chinese wife is like, "why do westerners think that the Chinese government is a monster? westerners are so weird"

Some other posters noted patriotism. While this indeed plays a role, it's not the whole story. I think my above points are much more important. What patriotism contributes, is the sense that western criticism is often hypocritical and full of ulterior motives (which they often are).

There is indeed no evidence that any of her friends or family have reported her as missing. Western reports are purely based on the reasoning "censorship + WTA non-contact -> disappeared". Hence "Who had the right to declare her missing in the first place?"

Okay this post has been very long and I'm about to hit the text limit. And it's late, so I'll continue tomorrow with part 2. Feel free to ask questions in the mean time.

[1] I'm just going to assume good faith on part of WTA here. There are those who doubt its good faith because it's not the first time that an organization is or has been turned into a front for US regime change operations. This probably sounds conspiracy theoristy if you've never heard of this concept, but you really should research what the NED does and how the US weaponizes human rights.

It is truly bizarre to me that someone who is taking a very pro-CCP stance will justify this with reference to propaganda that other nations create...it is really something. Every nation creates propaganda, every nation does not have media controlled by the state, every nation does not have massive propaganda departments that are present at all levels of society...they aren't equivalent, the only reason to draw the equivalence is because you understand that something is wrong but (for whatever reason) have to justify that to yourself by claiming everyone else is just as bad.

It is like the Communist criticism of democracy: oh, elections are all rigged by wealthy people anyway...said from a country with no elections and a one-party state. Ofc.