This is sadly something you find everywhere in this world, but at least, in some countries, women can hope to get the justice to investigate fairly.
Being a woman in this world is not easy.
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.
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.
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.