Editor's note: Andrew Korybko is a Moscow-based American political analyst. The article reflects the author's views and not necessarily those of CGTN.

The Women's Tennis Association (WTA) announced its decision to suspend tournaments in China. The move came in response to unsubstantiated rumormongering spread by Western mainstream media on the whereabouts of Chinese tennis player Peng Shuai. 

Peng took some time for herself after her social media post last month, which unexpectedly generated a disproportionate amount of global attention from ill-intended foreign observers. She’s since reappeared in the public eye and even spoken to Olympic officials.

Nevertheless, the WTA still decided to suspend its tournaments in China. This likely wasn't an independent decision but was done under significant Western mainstream media duress and pressure from Western officials. After all, the U.S. is reportedly considering a diplomatic boycott of next February's Beijing Winter Olympics

Politicizing sports is a lose-lose policy which only hurts the innocent athletes involved.

Plus, the athlete did nothing wrong. By hurting the athletes and taking away the dreams that they worked so hard all their lives to achieve, it can be said that those who politicize sports are behaving in an inhumane manner. 

Once again, the WTA — while formally being responsible for this unfortunate decision — likely did it under duress, which must be better kept in mind.

Nobody is being detained against their will in this particular context, but innocent athletes nevertheless have had their dreams ruined because of the West's pressure upon the WTA to politicize the issue of its forthcoming tournaments in China. 

In other words, their dreams are being held hostage to the political whims by proxy in a way which exploits a sensitive personal situation connected to a star athlete, but which nobody has any legitimate grounds to be concerned about. Peng is safe, as even Olympic officials themselves now know for a fact, yet facts never got in the way of the U.S.'s hybrid war on China before. 

Therein lies the problem since the U.S.'s mainstream media are attempting to dominate the Western discourse. None of this has anything to do with whether or not the WTA should hold tournaments in China, nor with the Chinese government. This is nothing other than a social media sensation that was maliciously exploited by ill-intended foreign media and political forces in a desperate but inevitably doomed attempt to discredit the Chinese government and the upcoming Beijing Winter Olympics. 

The lessons to be learned are several. such proxy decisions are exploited to intensify the artificial foreign media storm over the manufactured case. And the original person (in this case Peng) is hurt while others such as her fellow Chinese athletes also become collateral damage in this hybrid war. 

With these observations in mind, it's sincerely hoped that the WTA becomes brave enough to resist the pressure and thus reverse its unfortunate decision. Chinese athletes shouldn't have their dreams ruined by the "hostage diplomacy." This entire decision has been manufactured solely for the purpose of discrediting the Chinese authorities and the upcoming Beijing Winter Olympics.

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