Key Points
- Chinese tennis player Peng Shuai disappeared after accusing a Chinese official of sexual assault.
- Shuai has since reappeared in strange videos shared by the Chinese government.
- The WTA has threatened to end its relationship with China over human rights violations.
The WTA is currently in a tense standoff with China over the disappearance – and suspicious reappearance – of Chinese tennis player Peng Shuai. Shuai went MIA after sharing accusations of sexual assault against former Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli on social media. She’s since been seen in strange “proof of life” videos posted by the Chinese government.
“It was good to see Peng Shuai in recent videos, but they don’t alleviate or address the WTA’s concern about her well-being and ability to communicate without censorship or coercion,” a spokesperson for the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) told CNN in a statement.
“We’re at a crossroads with our relationship, obviously, with China,” WTA Chief Executive Steve Simon told CNN in an exclusive interview. “We’re definitely willing to pull our business, and deal with all the complications that come with it, because this is bigger than the business.”
“The circuit survived this year without a swing through Asia, even if there’s a lot of money there,” tennis player Alizé Cornet said in an interview. “That might reassure us that we could survive without the Chinese part of the tour. If we had to split from it at some point because it doesn’t match our values, then we still have to do it, even if we lose something financially.”
The WTA’s executives and players issuing a clear message to China: this will not stand.
While Simon’s “bigger than business” approach should be the gold standard – especially when dealing with America’s biggest enemy – it isn’t. Just look at the NBA’s botched response in 2019.
When Houston Rockets GM Daryl Morey tweeted words of support for pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong in 2019, the tweet was quickly deleted and the NBA went into damage control. Why? Because China is a lucrative market for the NBA, estimated to bring in more than $500 million dollars a year.
“Listen….@dmorey does NOT speak for the @HoustonRockets,” tweeted Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta. “Our presence in Tokyo is all about the promotion of the @NBA internationally and we are NOT a political organization.”
All about promotion and your bottom line. Got it.
“I think that, when you’re misinformed or not educated about something, and I’m just talking about the tweet itself, you never know the ramifications that can happen and we all see what that did,” NBA All-Star Lebron James said at the time about Morey’s tweet. “Not only for our league, for all of us in America, for people in China as well. Sometimes you have to think through things that you say that may cause harm to not only for yourself, but for the majority of people. I think that’s just a prime example of that.”
Daryl Morey wasn’t the misinformed one here.
The WTA makes an estimated $100 million dollars a year in China; part of a 10-year deal to host the tennis association’s finals through 2028. But they’ll walk away if China doesn’t come clean on its censorship (or possibly worse) of tennis star Peng Shuai.
Afterall, this isn’t a game.
