[necovek]

That's definitely true for women around the world (including in China).

But while "silencing" is happening throughout the world for victims of sexual crimes (and we should work to stop this), what's happening to Peng is probably unrelated to the type of crime, but rather about who the perpetrator was (a highly-ranked CCP official).

She'd likely see the same fate if she talked about witnessing him do any other crime: it's most telling that not even World-known public figures like Peng can be considered safe from such intimidation.

[toyg]

Reaction to a scandal is one of those things where you really see the difference between a democracy, imperfect as it might be, and a tyrannical regime. In democracy, scandal brings disgrace and resignations; the office-holder has demonstrated to be morally unfit and lost his right to lead. In tyranny, you get silence and threats; the boss rules because he is the boss, not because of any moral superiority recognised by the population.

[burntbridge]

I didn't see any of that happen when Trump was in power or is that an aberration.

[toyg]

There was an official impeachment process. It didn't complete, but it was started iirc; I expect that, had Trump won another mandate on an even slighter majority, we would have heard much more about it. Also there were a lot of active reactions, official and unofficial, which were widely reported (civil servants withdrawing information, leaking all sorts of stories to the press, scrambling to correct his actions, etc etc).

Scandals can be survived even in democracy, for sure (Dick Cheney shot a man, Ted Kennedy killed a woman, etc etc), but the accused has to work hard for it. And you could say Trump didn't really survive them, since he was voted out at the first chance.

[ngcc_hk]

Try it if anyone other than trump. He is quite unusual. But any others.

The communist is on the other hand … could she be the exception not coming out as the bad ladies to apology, to be suicide or what.