From Wimbledon Champion to Vice Premier’s Mistress? | Tea with Erping

The Sixth Plenary Session of the 19th Century Committee of the Chinese Communist Party was held in Beijing from November 8 to 11. According to the convention, the core power of the next Communist Party will be finalized at this Sixth Plenary Session, including the members for the Party Bureau Standing Committee, and then handed over to the next year's 20th National Congress for an artificial vote. At such a sensitive time, an unexpected scandal blasted Zhang Gaoli, the former vice premier and a loyal official of the former party leader Jiang Zemin. Welcome to Tea with Erping on November 2. At 10 pm, Peng Shuai, a tennis star famously known as the Chinese tennis princess, posted on her Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter, that she was sexually assaulted by Zhang Gaoli, the former standing Party Bureau Committee member and vice premier, and was induced to maintain a lover relationship with him. Peng was the number one ranked double tennis player in China in 2014, won Wimbledon in 2013, and French Open in 2014 with her tennis partner Xie Shuwei of Taiwan. In her post, Peng narrated her sordid relationship with this senior party official. Her post lasted for some 20 minutes before it was taken down. Nevertheless, it has gone viral despite the government's attempt to shut down the issue. Well, that's what having 570,000 Weibo fans can do to disclose a scandal and provide a platform to voice your opinion in a highly censored society. Peng, who is now 35, said she was forced to have sex with Zhang Gaoli back in Tianjin city 10 years ago, when Zhang Gaoli was the Communist Party chief there. She said she was afraid and panicked when she agreed to have sex with him for the first time, who is now in his mid-70s. Peng recalled Zhang gave her fake promises that he would treat her well, which led her to believe his feelings for her were true, leading to an on-and-off consensual relationship seven years ago. According to Peng, when she was alone with Zhang Gaoli, he was down-to-earth and kind to her. They had endless topics to discuss and enjoyed many recreational activities together. However, it would be a different story when others were around. Zhang left Peng after he was being promoted to the Standing Committee at the 18th Party Congress. After Zhang retired from political office three years ago, he contacted Peng through Dr. Liu from the Tianjin Tennis Center and asked her to play tennis in Beijing. After tennis, both Zhang and his wife Kang Jie took this tennis star to their home. Playing tennis is obviously an excuse, as Peng recounts being taken into Zhang's room and was pressured to have sex, while Zhang's wife, Peng said, was guarding the bedroom door. However, Peng also said that as the relationship between them progressed, Zhang's wife became a terrible queen and ridiculed her privately, referencing the TV series Empresses in the Palace. She alleged that it was an unwanted repeat of a sexual encounter ten years ago in Tianjin city. As she stated, I was very scared that afternoon. I didn't expect it to be like this. Peng said she had difficulty processing her feelings over the years and spoke of this party official's constant fears that she might be recording audio or video of their encounters When Zhang Gaoli cancelled an appointment to discuss the matter on Tuesday, she posted her struggle and grievances online. I know I can't say it all clearly and that there's no use in saying it, she wrote, but I still want to say it. In the post, she wrote, I know that for someone of your eminence, Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli, you've said that you are not afraid, likening herself to the metaphor of an egg hitting a rock and a moth to the flame, courting self-destruction. Peng's Weibo blog was found to have posted a lot of PZ content, and there were photos where she was seen to be wearing the Z necklace. When a reporter asked in 2017 what is the meaning of the Z necklace she was wearing, she replied, It has special meaning. Z is the first letter of Zhang Gaoli's surname. Peng Shuai's move seems to have long wanted to announce her secret love affair to the world. So who is Zhang Gaoli? Zhang Gaoli, a former member of the Party Bureau Standing Committee of the Communist Party and the Vice Premier of China, was elected into the Standing Committee of the 18th National Congress by former Party chief Jiang Zemin. After Jiang Zemin abdicated, he went to Mount Tai in Shandong province to reciprocate his vow. On May 1, 2006, Zhang Gaoli, who was serving as the party secretary of Shandong province, ordered the entire Mount Tai park to be closed for two days just to welcome Jiang and his associates. He also instructed eight people to carry the Si Dan chair specially prepared for Jiang Zemin. He himself followed on foot to escort Jiang Zemin and his associates up to the mountain top. According to an insider familiar with the matter, Jiang Zemin was conspiring to assassinate the then party leader Hu Jintao and Jiang wanted to be while the assassination effort was in process. It's known that since Hu Jintao took over power from Jiang Zemin in 2002, they fought bitterly for 10 years to seize power. According to some media reports, Jiang Zemin had planned three assassinations of Hu Jintao, the most thrilling of which was in May 2006 in Shandong province. Zhang Gaoli's effort to please Jiang Zemin was paid off. After Jiang Zemin's trip to Mount Tai in Shandong province, Zhang Gaoli was promoted in 2007 to be the party chief of the Tianjin city where he had his affair with Peng Chuan. In the same year, he was promoted to be a party bureau member of the Central Committee and eventually in 2012 became a party bureau standing committee member of the seventh-ranked most powerful man in China. As Jiang Zemin's prodigy, Zhang Gaoli belongs to the faction that challenges the power of the current leader Xi Jinping. Sources say that Zhang Gaoli used his position to make money wildly, with his assets reaching at least 10 billion yuan. It's reported that Zhang Gaoli earned hundreds of millions of yuan from Binghai Avenue that he built when he was in charge of Shenzhen city. The stones on both sides of Binghai Avenue were purchased from his hometown. At the same time, Zhang Gaoli assisted Jiang Zemin's son to transfer funds abroad, one being the head of Shenzhen city. After Zhang Gaoli became the secretary of Tianjin Municipal Party Committee in 2007, he reportedly benefited from the famous Tianjin private equity fraud incident that involved hundreds of billions of yuan. On August 25, the International Organization for Investigation and Persecution for Alun Gong, a New York-based non-profit human rights watchdog, announced that they are filing a case against Zhang Gaoli for the persecution of Alun Gong, a Buddhist meditation practice. Evidence of Zhang Gaoli's violation of committing genocide, torture, and crimes against humanity was released on September 20. Before the Beijing Olympics in May 2008, Zhang ordered an increasing effort in arresting Falun Gong practitioners in the name of creating a safe environment for the Olympics. While Zhang was the party leader of Shandong province and Tianjin city, several organ transplant hospitals in these places were suspected of harvesting organs from imprisoned Falun Gong practitioners, such as the notorious Qianfushan Hospital Liver Transplant Center and the Tianjin First Central Hospital's Organ Transplant Center. In July 2010, Zhang Gaoli inspected and encouraged the Tianjin Organ Transplant Center to continue to give full play to its advantages in organ transplantation. That year, the total amount of liver transplants at this center accounts for one-third of the country's total. The China Liver Transplant Registration Network registered 18,180 liver transplants between August 2009 and July 2010, of which 92.63% came from the so-called disease-donor liver transplantation. But China didn't even have an organ donation system at that time, and the actual number of organ transplants performed there should be much higher, according to independent international investigators. The U.S. International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 prohibits or repatriates Chinese officials and their immediate family members who have directly persecuted religious groups like Falun Gong from entering the United States. Zhang Gaoli is included in the list of 102 people whose names have been reported for the U.S. government to act upon, according to the law, Due to the sensitivity of this sex scandal, mainland Chinese netizens can only use very obscure terms to discuss Zhang Gaoli's adulterous relationship with the tennis star Peng Shuai on social platforms. In addition, some netizens discovered that Douban, a well-known online review site in China, has deleted all instructions, comments, and other content related to this scandal. Words such as tennis are nowhere to be found. Even content in relation to the South Korean drama The Prime Minister and Me have also been deleted from Chinese social platforms after it became a code word hinting at the affair between Zhang Gaoli and Peng Shuai. Although there were stories circulating that former party leader Jiang Zemin had four mistresses, and politics and laws are Zhou Yunkang turned CCTV station into a harem, among many other scandals, this is the first time that anyone has exposed her personal relationship on the internet. With the top leader of the Communist Party, in 2017, on the eve of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party, someone released illicit information concerning Wang Qishan and his family's manipulation in transferring large amounts of money overseas. Due to this news, Wang Qishan failed to be re-elected as a member of the Party Bureau Standing Committee. History seems to be repeating itself, with the Party's 6th plenary session underway, it may not be accidental with Peng Shuai's decision to reveal her relationship with Zhang Gaoli at this time, whom she had known for more than 10 years and has not been in contact with for the last three years. The motivation is speculative, and the timing chosen reveals the current turbulence and power struggle within the Communist Party. For the Communist Party, the 6th plenary session of the Central Committee is an extremely important meeting. Xi Jinping, as the General Secretary of the Party, will lay the groundwork for taking an unprecedented third term in power to vote next year, and Party members are vying for positions on the Central Committee and the new Party Bureau Standing Committee. Xi Jinping did not even come to the G20 and the Global Climate Summit in order to ensure that he can control everything at home. Yet at this time, Peng Shuai released such allegations and her post managed to stay online for 20 minutes before it was taken down, which is considered to be a slow reaction in the highly censored environment. This is definitely not a simple matter detrimental to Zhang Gaoli, but a blow to the Jiang Zemin faction. China's State Council Information Office also did not state its position on this scandal, including for comment from Zhang Gaoli. When asked at a regular daily briefing about the Weibo post, China's foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin evasively said that he is not aware of the issue and that this is not a question relating to foreign affairs, and his response was deliberately left out on the official foreign ministry's website. It's interesting to note that Peng Shuai is one of the athletes who is exempted from the Convention of Chinese Sports System. The convention requires athletes to train under the guidance of the coach of the national team, and must return most of their income She is one of the first athletes to reach an agreement with the state to train and travel on her own and retain a higher income percentage. Supporters of China's stifled feminist movements applauded the tennis star for speaking up. Allegations of sexual misconduct are rare in China, with many of the accusers punished for coming forward, or have faced charges of slander by the accused. Prostitution is illegal in China, but it's a minor infraction that typically results in detention of up to 15 days and a maximum fine of 5,000 yuan. China's Communist Party officially bans cadres from having extramarital relationships and improper sexual relations. The charge of adultery is frequently leveled at high-ranking graft suspects as a way of showing they are morally degenerate and deserve punishment. In October, the famous Chinese pianist prodigy Li Yundi was detained by the authorities for soliciting a prostitute. They were caught after authorities received tip-offs from the public. The state-run media ran the story for days to denounce this pianist. Li is currently banned on Chinese social media. Several affiliated organizations cut ties with the musician, and the Chinese Musician Association also revoked Li's membership for creating extremely negative social impact. At just 18, Li became the youngest pianist and the first Chinese person to win the first prize at the prestigious International Chopin Piano Competition in 2000. He has performed all around the world and is a household name in the Chinese-speaking world. The news has shocked many fans of the man known as China's Prince of Piano. Some netizens expressed skepticism at how he was caught. I'm curious to know how the public found out about him. When you see a 39-year-old man and a 29-year-old woman go into an apartment building together, how did people know that it's a prostitute and her customer? Why not a married couple, friends, hookup buddies, a Weibo comment rat? Legal professionals in China also debated whether the authorities and the press infringed upon Li's rights by making this administrative penalty public. People's Court Daily, the official newspaper under the Supreme People's Court in China, published an article pushing back these concerns. The article says, As a famous pianist in China, Li Yunli is a public figure and his behavior has a major influence on the general public, including news. Because of that, as a public figure, he should bear sharp criticism from society. According to Chinese law, administrative penalties that have a certain extent of social influence should be announced to the public. Doesn't Zhang Gaoli's influence as former vice premier of China, the seventh most powerful man in the country, extend beyond the pianist Li Yunli? Power abuse, together with sexual misconduct, is listed as one of the misdeeds in President Xi Jinping's anti-corruption campaign. A study by researchers at Beijing Renmin University found that 95% of high-level officials detained for corruption in 2012 had extramarital affairs. Seeing this scandal is being covered up in China, it is unlikely that Zhang Gaoli will be charged with the offense. The Internal Party Disciplinary Committee may use this incident to send a message to President Xi Jinping's remaining rivals. While the pianist Li Yunli and celebrity Chris Wu suffered tremendous punishment due to their sexual affairs, Zhang Gaoli's scandal is now being covered up. Like what George Orwell once wrote in Animal Farm, all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others. There is a saying in tennis, love means nothing. Perhaps the tennis star Peng Shuai now understands that better than anyone. A love affair with a senior communist leader in this case has ended up with nothing indeed. Perhaps this lesson would apply to international relations. Seeking love with a communist country will also end up with nothing and nowhere. Let's have a tea break. Until next time, peace and tea be with you.