Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai appeared at a Beijing tennis tournament Sunday, according to official event photos, after international pressure mounted for information about her wellbeing.

Peng can be seen in a navy sports jacket and white trackpants at the Fila Kids Junior Tennis Challenger Finals, according to photos published on the official Weibo account of the China Open -- her first public appearance since her sexual abuse accusations were widely censored on the Chinese internet.

The two-time Grand Slam doubles champion had not been seen publicly since alleging earlier this month that former vice premier Zhang Gaoli, now in his 70s, "forced" her into sex during an on-off relationship spanning several years.

Following a global outcry, including from tennis superstars and the United Nations, Chinese state media reporters have released a flurry of footage purporting to show all is well with Peng.

A video from the event, tweeted by Global Times newspaper editor Hu Xijin, shows Peng standing in a stadium among a group of guests whose names are announced to a smattering of applause.

A Global Times reporter tweeted another video showing Peng signing autographs for children at what appears to be the same stadium before posing for photos with them.

Hu also posted two other videos on Saturday, the first showing Peng walking into a restaurant wearing a coat, knit cap and face mask.

A visible sign says Beijing Yibin Guesthouse, a famous restaurant a stone's throw from Tiananmen Square, owned by the Sichuan local government.

In the second, Peng is maskless sitting at a table chatting with people over a meal.

AFP could not verify the authenticity of the videos.

Hu tweeted in English that the second video shows "Peng Shuai was having dinner with her coach and friends in a restaurant. The video content clearly shows they are shot on Saturday Beijing time."

The conversation revolved around "tennis matches". A man sitting with Peng and two women said "tomorrow is November 20th".

But one of the women quickly corrects him, saying, "It is the 21st", implying that the video was filmed on Saturday.

The chat appears to be staged. It was filmed in the evening hours with a mobile phone. Peng appears relaxed in the footage.

- 'Insufficient' -

Peng's claims against Zhang were the first time China's #MeToo movement has touched the highest echelons of the ruling Communist Party.

They were quickly scrubbed from the Twitter-like Weibo platform, and concerns have grown for her safety since.

Of the restaurant videos, Women's Tennis Association boss Steve Simon said he was glad to see the images but "it remains unclear if she is free and able to make decisions and take actions on her own, without coercion or external interference."

"This video alone is insufficient," Simon said in a statement.

"I have been clear about what needs to happen and our relationship with China is at a crossroads."

The WTA has threatened to end lucrative contracts with China unless it gets word of Peng's safety.

Chinese state-media journalists have released what they say is proof that all is well.

First, state-run CGTN last week tweeted a screenshot of what it said was an email from Peng to the WTA saying her accusations were not true and that "everything is fine".

But doubts were flagged about the awkward language and a cursor visible in the screenshot.

Then photos of a smiling Peng emerged Friday on the verified Twitter account @shen_shiwei, labelled Chinese state-affiliated media by the social network.

The authenticity of the images could not be verified, and the user did not respond to AFP's request for comment.

These were followed by the videos posted on Saturday and Sunday.

China's government has repeatedly refused to comment on the case.

Discussion about Peng's accusations is blocked on China's tightly controlled internet.

- 'Independent, verifiable proof' -

A growing chorus of voices in the sports world and beyond want to know where and how Peng is.

The White House has expressed "deep concern" about Peng, with President Joe Biden's press secretary saying his administration wanted China to "provide independent, verifiable proof" of her whereabouts.

Britain's foreign office also said it was "extremely concerned" and urged China to verifiable evidence.

The UN has insisted on a fully transparent investigation into the claims made by Peng.

Some of the biggest names in tennis have spoken out about the case, including Serena Williams, Novak Djokovic and Naomi Osaka.

Superstar Roger Federer also weighed in on Saturday, saying on Sky News: "She's one of our tennis champions, a former world number one. Clearly it's concerning. I hope she's safe."

Peng represented China at the Beijing, London and Rio de Janeiro Olympics and won gold for China at the 2010 Asian Games.

She is a former Wimbledon and French Open doubles champion.

Censors, legal hurdles stifle China's #MeToo movement
Beijing (AFP) Nov 20, 2021 - China's #MeToo movement has stumbled in the face of swift internet censors, a patriarchal society and a legal system that places a heavy burden on the claimant.

Explosive claims this month by tennis star Peng Shuai that a former top Communist Party politician had sexually assaulted her marked the first time allegations have hit the top layer of government.

But her accusations were swiftly scrubbed from the Chinese internet, and she has not been seen publicly since.

Others have faced the same fate, with an increasingly austere Beijing cracking down on any form of grassroots social movement.

The global #MeToo movement reached China in 2018 when a wave of women published allegations of sexual harassment against university professors.

Threatened by the prospect of an uncontrolled mass movement, authorities quickly began blocking social media hashtags and keywords.

The phrase #MeToo is still blocked.

Prominent feminists face regular police harassment and detention -- including activist Sophia Huang Xueqin, arrested in September for "inciting subversion of state power", according to Reporters Without Borders.

Although leader Xi Jinping has declared women are "an important force driving social development and progress", there are barely any women in key government roles in China.

Political leadership is a man's world, with only one woman in the Communist Party's elite 25-member Politburo.

Xi has also been aggressively pushing a conservative narrative of women as mothers and wives.

- Silenced -

New legislation clarifying the concept of sexual harassment passed last year in China, but accusers still face major obstacles.

"You have to constantly prove you're honest... and that you're not using this issue to hype yourself," a woman who had made an allegation of sexual misconduct told AFP, asking to remain unidentified as she feared retaliation.

But for the accused, "it's actually very simple", she said.

"He can just deny it and does not need to prove his innocence."

The cases that see the light of day are often shot down by courts -- and a large majority of cases brought under sexual harassment charges are the accused pressing back with defamation charges.

Wang Qi, a World Wildlife Fund employee who alleged online that her boss had forcibly kissed and repeatedly harassed her, was hit with a retaliatory defamation lawsuit from him in 2018.

She was ordered to apologise by a court which concluded she had insufficient proof and had "spread falsehoods" about him.

And a Beijing court this year dismissed the case of Zhou Xiaoxuan, who accused state TV host Zhu Jun of groping her when she was an intern.

The court said Zhou had provided insufficient evidence.

Zhu in turn sued Zhou for defamation.

Courts require accusers to show evidence far stronger than that provided by the accused, often turning away witnesses close to the accusers including friends and colleagues, according to research from Yale Law School in May.

This discourages "employers and survivors from disciplining alleged harassers or speaking out, because they know they might be sued and be made to carry a heavy burden of proof", the researchers wrote.

Other women who come forward with stories of harassment and assault are subjected to personal attacks.

Prominent journalist Zhang Wen was accused of rape by an anonymous letter-writer in 2018, prompting other women to come forward with harassment allegations.

Zhang hit back online at his accusers in an effort to discredit them in comments that were freely allowed to circulate.

They were heavy drinkers who dated many men, he wrote, adding that his original accuser "had changed boyfriends multiple times at university".

- Political motive -

But Beijing has allowed allegations to swirl when it suits them.

A female employee at e-commerce giant Alibaba alleged this summer that she had been sexually assaulted on a work trip by her manager and a client, in a case that drew widespread coverage and commentary across Chinese media.

The company was coming under intense pressure from state regulators at the time, and Alibaba fired the manager and vowed to crack down on "ugly" company culture.

Once the furore died down, however, police eventually dropped the case, saying the manager's act of "forced indecency" was not a crime.

And Canadian-Chinese pop star Kris Wu faced a rare arrest in August after a 19-year-old woman accused him online of rape -- coinciding with an official crackdown on celebrity excess.

Equally, fallen Communist Party officials expelled for corruption are frequently accused of sexual misconduct -- but it will "only be revealed after their downfalls due to political struggles, as part of the facts of their crimes," veteran Chinese feminist Lu Pin wrote in a recent essay on Peng Shuai.

"Meanwhile the women are used as evidence of their bad reputation."

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