In an interview with French newspaper L’Equipe, Chinese tennis player, Peng Shuai, has denied accusing a former Chinese party leader of sexual assault, calling it a ‘huge misunderstanding’.
In November, Peng published a 1600-word essay on the Chinese social media platform Weibo, where she appears to have accused former Chinese Vice-Premier Zhang Gaoli of forcing her to have sex with him.
The essay included a sentence that, according the to the BBC, when translated into English could mean either ‘You took me to your house and raped me’, ‘You took me to your house and forced me to have sex with you’ or ‘You took me to your house and pressured me into having sexual relations with you’.
The post caused widespread controversy and led the Women’s Tennis Association to suspend tournaments in China.
Following the deletion of her post, Peng seemed to disappear from public life, leading many to wonder whether she had fallen foul of the Chinese Communist Party.
However, in what has been described as a tightly controlled interview, Peng, wearing a red tracksuit top with the characters for ‘China’ on it, said that she had been unaware of the concern for her wellbeing expressed by the international community. She added that she had deleted the post herself because she ‘wanted to’ and has been living a ‘normal life’.
When asked about the sexual assault accusation, Peng denied making any such claim: ‘Sexual assault? I never said that anyone made me submit to a sexual assault.’
The interview was conducted in the presence of a Chinese Olympic committee official. Questions were submitted in advance and it seems that no sustained follow-up questions were permitted.
The Associated Press, responding to the interview, summarised Peng’s message as: ‘Nothing to see here, move on.’