EXPLAINER: Peng Shuai case shows barriers Chinese women face

By The Associated Press

BEIJING (AP) — The controversy surrounding Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai’s accusations of sexual assault against a former top politician continues to cast a shadow over the Beijing Winter Olympic Games that officially begin on Friday. Within China, however, her case has drawn little attention amid the crushing force of official censorship. Yet it points also to the barriers Chinese women face when raising such claims, both in the courts and in a society and political culture that regards dissent of any kind as a threat to the tightly-controlled Communist Party-dominated system. While the #MeToo movement gained some initial traction when it launched in China in 2018, recent cases show hopes for a significant change in official attitudes may have been unrealistic.