The Lawfare Podcast: Peng Shuai

Jen Patja, Jacob Schulz, Julian Ku, Katrina Northrop
Friday, December 17, 2021, 12:00 PM

Published by The Lawfare Institute
in Cooperation With
Brookings

On November 2, the Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai publicly accused on social media a former vice-premier of China of sexual assault. Chinese authorities responded by taking down her posts and engaging in a mass campaign of censorship on Chinese social media. Later on, Peng disappeared from public view, prompting many tennis stars, athletes and others to demand answers about where she was. It's a long saga that ended with the Women's Tennis Association suspending all tournaments in China in a major move that cut against the trend of Western companies ignoring abuses committed at the hands of the Chinese government. Jacob Schulz sat down with Julian Ku, the Maurice A. Deane Distinguished Professor in Constitutional Law and Professor of Law at Hofstra University, and Katrina Northrop, a reporter at The Wire China, to talk through what's happened to Peng Shuai and what to make of it.


Jen Patja is the editor and producer of the Lawfare Podcast and Rational Security. She currently serves as the Co-Executive Director of Virginia Civics, a nonprofit organization that empowers the next generation of leaders in Virginia by promoting constitutional literacy, critical thinking, and civic engagement. She is the former Deputy Director of the Robert H. Smith Center for the Constitution at James Madison's Montpelier and has been a freelance editor for over 20 years.
Jacob Schulz is a law student at the University of Chicago Law School. He was previously the Managing Editor of Lawfare and a legal intern with the National Security Division in the U.S. Department of Justice. All views are his own.
Julian Ku is the Maurice A. Deane Distinguished Professor of Constitutional Law at Hofstra University School of Law. He is a co-founder of Opinio Juris, the leading blog on international law.
Katrina Northrop is a reporter at The Wire China, based in New York. Her work has been published in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Providence Journal, and SupChina.

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