Where in the world is Peng Shuai?

Two weeks ago, the tennis star made sexual assault allegations against a high-ranking Chinese politician. She has not been seen since. 

Peng seems to have vanished. Searches for her name on Chinese social media come up blank. On Wednesday, China's state broadcaster CGTN posted an alleged email from her. It was denounced as fake. 

She is far from the only prominent Chinese figure to disappear. Last year, AlibabaChinese e-commerce company, now one of the world's largest businesses. co-founder Jack Ma vanished for three months after criticising the country's banking allegations, while real estate tycoon Ren Zhiqiang went missing after attacking the government's Covid response. In 2018, actress Fan Bingbing disappeared for four months.

China is a vast country with 3,500 years of history and a population of 1.4 billion. Its values are different from many Western nations.

When viewed through the lens of liberal democracy, modern China seems to be sliding towards autocracyA society ruled by a single person or group with absolute power.. Leader Xi Jinping is likely to rule for a third term. The state controls the media and the internet. Pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong have been suppressed. And China has become a surveillance state.

The disappearances echo those in Soviet Russia, where Joseph Stalin purgedStalin organised several "purges". The Great Purge of 1936 - 38 saw an estimated 950,000 - 1.2 million deaths. political rivals from existence, even erasing them from photographs. Others - including 120 British MPs and peers - have compared China's treatment of its Uyghur minorityA largely Muslim ethnic group native to Xinjiang, in northwestern China. Since 2014, the Chinese government has subjected them to abusive measures, including forced labour, internment camps and forced sterilisation. to the crimes of Nazi Germany.

China is not alone in taking an authoritarian turn. In 2020, longtime Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko appeared to fake a victory before brutally suppressing protests. This summer, Afghanistan's elected government was overthrown by the Taliban.

In a damning essay for The Atlantic, historian Anne Applebaum argues that dictatorships are taking over. She says: "If the 20th Century was the story of a slow, uneven struggle, ending with the victory of liberal democracy... the 21st Century is, so far, a story of the reverse." 

Applebaum identifies Autocracy Inc. - a network of illiberal states that support each other, in contrast to an "absence of strategy" among democracies. She takes aim at "cowardly and greedy" Western governments, as well as those who accept money from autocratic regimes, from McKinsey to Nicky Minaj. 

Historically, much of the world was run by monarchs and autocrats. Now, only 54 of the world's countries are dictatorships. The process towards democracy was never going to be smooth.

Indeed, Serbian democracy activist Srdja Popovic argues that situations like Belarus actually show a dictatorship on the back pedal. Lukashenko's violent backlash is a sign of a well-organised opposition.

Yes. Today's autocratic regimes have embedded their wealth in democratic countries, so their money runs through Western banks, underpins property markets and funds sporting events. This has made them more powerful.

No. For a start, they did not go away. The likes of Belarus, China and Russia have seldom been anything other than dictatorial. They may be flaunting their power. But this could be a sign of weakness as much as strength.