After weeks of people around the world asking “Where’s Peng Shuai?” the Chinese tennis star finally held an interview with a western media outlet in the midst of the Winter Olympics. But the interview was highly scripted to say the least. Not only did the French outlet have to submit the questions in advance, they had to promise to publish Peng Shuai’s full responses which, I’d be willing to bet, were just as scripted.

All of this started when Peng published a lengthy statement on Chinese social media accusing a high-ranking member of the Chinese Politburo of pressuring her into a sexual relationship. The post was immediately pulled down and references to it were scrubbed from social media. Now Peng says the whole thing was just a big misunderstanding:

“Sexual assault? I never said that anyone made me submit to a sexual assault,” the newspaper quoted her as saying.

“This post resulted in an enormous misunderstanding from the outside world,” she also said. “My wish is that the meaning of this post no longer be skewed.”

Asked by L’Equipe why the post disappeared from Peng’s account, she said: “I erased it.”

“Why? Because I wanted to,” she added.

In response to a question about what happened to her after the post went up, she offered a CCP talking point:

“I was to say first of all that emotions, sport and politics are three clearly separate things,” the newspaper quoted her as saying. “My romantic problems, my private life, should not be mixed with sport and politics.”

Asked what her life has been like since the November posting, she replied: “It is as it should be: Nothing special.”

A Chinese women’s rights activists told the Post that people shouldn’t be frustrated with Peng for doing what she has to do to be able to survive in China.

Lu Pin, a prominent Chinese women’s rights activist and founder of the media platform Feminist Voices, who now lives in the United States, said Peng’s new account of what happens “demonstrates a great deal of absurdity.” But Peng, Lu adds, should not be blamed for falling into a “trap set by a violent system” that engages victims to be part of denying that violence to the world.

“We should allow Peng to be safe in the way she can be,” but at the same time, “we must be aware of the system’s brutality and the harm it causes to our universal humanity and moral standards,” Lu said.

The founder of an anti-CCP group notes that in her recent interviews, Peng has been wearing bright red China branding.

Note #PengShuai wore a jacket w “中国” (China) on it in Dec itvw; she again wore a “中国”jacket in l’equipe itvw.

It’s by design, from what she says to what she wears. It’s the Chinese govt claiming sovereignty over Peng Shuai. It’s a warning to foreigners, especially to @WTA https://t.co/es76l9Vpja pic.twitter.com/QH4hRpWxWj

— Yaxue Cao (@YaxueCao) February 7, 2022

In the most recent interview, she also had Chinese minders in the room. You can see them in this photo:

#PengShuai's Olympic 'forced confession': Communist minders are caught lurking in the background of Chinese tennis star's new interview

2 minders accompanied her: Wang Kan, the Chinese Olympic Committee chief of staff, a woman who didn’t identify herselfhttps://t.co/Kz1hm4DBlz pic.twitter.com/IxcoUHFtk7

— Yaxue Cao (@YaxueCao) February 7, 2022

Clearly, Peng is under tremendous pressure to make these allegations go away. Speaking of going away, during the interview Peng also announced that she is retiring from Tennis. That’s another decision she probably didn’t make by herself. Retirement will of course make it easier to explain why she never gives interviews anymore.

While it may be understandable why Peng is doing what she’s doing at the moment, given she has no choice, what’s harder to understand why the IOC has been so consistently eager to support China. They literally never have a bad word to say about China even when it’s obvious Peng (a former Olympian) is being pressured to recant her allegation. Today the IOC Director of Communications literally said it wasn’t for them or anyone to judge.

Speaking at an IOC & Beijing Organizing Committee media briefing Monday, IOC Director of Communications Adams said it was not up to the governing body to pass judgment on Peng Shuai’s sexual assault accusation — which she has since recanted — or claims she has been “speaking under duress” in subsequent appearances.

“We as a sports organization are doing everything to ensure that she is happy and I don’t think it is up to us to be able to judge in one way, just as it’s not for you to judge either in one way or another, her position,” Adams continued.

Finally, I don’t praise CNN often but this segment on Peng Shuai is genuinely solid. Josh Rogin lays out the situation and former Olympian Rennae Stubbs says the pressure is on the IOC to do something once these games have ended. “I have actually spoken to somebody who has spoken to her and she really can’t say anything. I mean, this is the issue that we face when it comes to the Chinese Communist Party,” Stubbs said.

Even CNN co-host John Berman gets it: “Every day that passes here it does feel like there’s so many organizations, nations around the world complicit in this performance art that’s taking place by the day, you know China has a torch-bearer that’s a Uighur, as there’s a genocide going on in part of the country. Now Peng Shuai trotted out for this interview, chaperoned with minders there. It’s just day by day this performance.”

The segment ends with Stubbs suggesting the IOC should fly Peng and her entire family out of the country and then ask her what she really believes.