Editor’s note for Friday, November 19, 2021

Dear reader,

The Women’s Tennis Association has threatened to pull out of China if Péng Shuài 彭帅 “is not fully accounted for and her allegations are not properly investigated,” CNN reports. “We’re definitely willing to pull our business and deal with all the complications that come with it…Because this is certainly, this is bigger than the business,” WTA head Steve Simon said.

A spokesperson for the UN Human Rights office added that “it would be important to have proof of her whereabouts and well being, and we would urge that there be an investigation with full transparency into her allegations of sexual assault.”

The only official response in China has been a plea of ignorance, reported by Reuters on November 3. But state broadcaster CGTN tweeted an alleged email from Peng on Wednesday to the effect that she was fine, and today a CGTN employee tweeted an alleged screenshot from Peng’s WeChat account with photos as proof of life and health.

No one is reassured by these messages or the creepy manner of their delivery.

And with the Women’s Tennis Association and various tennis players, especially women, displaying a level of nerve not found in other professional sports leagues, this story is not going away.

Other breaking stories from China today:

“Prominent scientist who said lab-leak theory of COVID-19 origin should be probed now believes evidence points to Wuhan market” is a headline in the Washington Post, describing research from University of Arizona evolutionary virologist Michael Worobey. Worobey “concludes that the first patient known to fall ill with the virus was a female seafood vendor at the [Huanan Seafood Market] who became symptomatic on December 11, 2019.”

The New York Times reports that “several experts…said that Dr. Worobey’s detective work was sound,” though “the evidence was still insufficient to decisively settle the larger question of how the pandemic began.”

Is China secretly building “a military facility at a port in the United Arab Emirates, one of the U.S.’s closest Mideast allies”? That’s what U.S. intelligence agencies believe, according to “people familiar with the matter” who spoke to the Wall Street Journal.

Lithuania, population about 2.8 million, is the latest target of Beijing’s ire after it allowed Taiwan to open a de facto embassy, as had been announced in August. The U.S. has promised a $600 million export credit agreement to help offset economic damage.

Which might be severe: The Chinese Foreign Ministry today promised that the “Lithuanian side shall reap what it sows” (立方咎由自取，必将自食其果 lìfāng jiùyóu zìqǔ , bì jiāng zì shí qí guǒ).

—Jeremy Goldkorn, Editor-in-Chief