Chinese tennis player Peng Shuai has not been heard publicly since she accused a former vice premier of sexual assault. Peng is the latest in a long line of prominent figures in China – artists, celebrities, senior officials and media moguls – who died under Xi Jinping’s reign.

Ai Weiwei, artist

The contemporary dissident artist has openly criticized the Chinese government, especially on issues of democracy and freedom of expression. In 2011, he was arrested in Beijing and spent 81 days in a secret prison. For years, his passport was withheld.

Ai is one of the few celebrities who has shown the world what it is to be missing in China. In 2015, he took over the main galleries of the Royal Academy of Arts in London, building a model of his life in severely restricted prison. In it, threatening-looking guards oversee his every activity, from sleeping to eating, taking a shower, and defecating.

Zhao Wei, actor

In recent months, the Chinese government has launched an intensive crackdown on celebrities who it says mislead young people and distance them from the ideals of the Communist Party.

Billionaire movie star and pop singer Zhao Wei indeed disappeared from public life in China in August, his online presence erased. His movies and TV shows were also removed from popular films. Diffusion sites.

It is not clear whether Zhao is under house arrest or kept a low profile. In September she was spotted in her hometown in eastern China pose for a photo. Last week, Chinese internet portal Netease spotted Zhao during an online shopping event.

Meng Hongwei, Head of Interpol

Former vice-minister of public security in China, Meng Hongwei was among a growing group of Communist Party figures caught up in President Xi’s anti-corruption campaign, which is widely seen as a purge of political enemies.

Meng achieved global notoriety in 2016 when he was elected president of Interpol, the international organization that facilitates global police cooperation.

However, his tenure ended prematurely in 2018 when he disappeared during a visit to China. He was later charged with accepting bribes and expelled from the Communist Party, and in 2020, Meng was jailed for 13 years for corruption. His wife, Grace, was granted political asylum in France last year after saying she feared she and her two children were the targets of attempted kidnappings.

Jack Ma, business tycoon

Beijing’s leadership has become deeply concerned about the rapid growth in power and influence of the country’s business elite. Jack Ma, the founder of giant e-commerce company Alibaba, was the most prominent figure to disappear from public life after a crackdown on his empire. Authorities in Beijing had ordered an investigation into allegations of “monopoly practices” at Alibaba.

Ma’s disappearance a year ago, shortly after publicly criticizing the government’s trade regulations, had fueled speculation he may have fled China. However, he resurfaced three months later in an online video from his hometown. According to local media, Ma said he had “studied and reflected, and we have become more determined to devote ourselves to education and public welfare.”

During the past few weeks, Ma has been seen in Hong Kong meeting associates. He also traveled to Spain, where he was spotted on his luxury yacht.

Gui Minhai, bookseller

A Hong Kong-based publisher specializing in sometimes gossip books about the Chinese political elite, Gui Minhai mysteriously disappeared from his Thai vacation home in October 2015. Held incommunicado for months, he reappeared in 2016 in mainland China in state television where he said in an apparently staged advertisement that he had visited for a drinking and driving incident.

Two years later, Gui was partially released and allowed to make video calls, but in 2018 he was again arrested by plainclothes officers on his way with two Swedish diplomats to a medical appointment.

As a Swedish citizen of Chinese descent, Gui’s detention caused a serious diplomatic split, pitting China against Sweden and other countries in the European Union, raising fears that their citizens were next.