Editor’s note for Monday, November 22, 2021

My thoughts today:

Peng Shuai is still in the news. In fact, her #MeToo allegations may have launched the most highly-reported China story of 2021.

Why? There are a few reasons:

• A telegenic young athlete — who has conquered the heights of both Chinese state-run sports leagues and the Western professional sports business — has made allegations of sexual misconduct against one of China’s most senior politicians. He no longer holds any official positions, but he only retired in 2018.
• The Chinese media control machine has gone into overdrive to suppress the story in China.
• Western sports stars, including media darlings like Naomi Osaka, have found Peng’s treatment horrifying, and have made a fuss, on the open internet, which China cannot control.
• The Women’s Tennis Association and its chairman, Steve Simon, have been extremely vocal in their criticism of the Chinese government, unlike the International Olympic Committee, the NBA and almost every other sporting or business organization that has found itself in a comparable situation.

The story is genuinely fascinating. It’s not just an artefact of media companies chasing views and clicks (although it is that too): The Peng Shuai affair is worth following for anyone seeking to understand how a rising China will interact with the rest of the world, and how the Communist Party will deal with a huge range of challenges to its power.

Xí Jìnpíng 习近平 likes to talk of “telling China’s story well,” but this particular tale is completely outside of his control. And so, China’s propaganda workers have a tough job this week:

They need to convince the outside world that Peng is totally fine by giving her maximum exposure abroad, while at the very same time scrubbing her completely from the Chinese internet and even from international TV feeds viewable only in high-end hotels in China.

For the latest on the Peng Shuai affair, see our top story below.

Our word of the day is what we talk about at home is different from what we talk about outside. That’s one of several possible translations of the Chinese saying 内外有别 nèiwài yǒu bié, which literally means “there is a difference between the inside and the outside.”

—Jeremy Goldkorn, Editor-in-Chief