With weeks to go until the Beijing Winter Olympics get underway, China has disappeared one of its own athletes. Yet faced with a potential public-relations disaster, the International Olympic Committee has decided to abet Chinese human-rights abuses.

On Nov. 2, Chinese tennis star and three-time Olympian Peng Shuai took to social media to accuse a former vice premier of sexual assault. Censors quickly scrubbed the allegations from the Chinese Internet. Peng has not been seen in public since.