#MeToo Movement in China: What Point is the Fight for Women's Rights at?

  Articoli (Articles)
  Laura Salvemini
  28 November 2022
  4 minutes, 19 seconds

The Me Too movement begun in the United States in 2006, when activist Tarana Burke established a non-profit organization with this name to help victims of sexual abuses and harassments. The name of the movement founded by Burke would then become the more famous hashtag that would gain international visibility in 2017, when actress Alyssa Milano urged her follower to use it to show support following reports by the New York Times on numerous actresses complaining about film producer Harvey Weinstein.

The movement reached China in 2018, when a former student Luo Qianquian accused Professor Chen Xiaowu of Beihang University of Beijin of sexual harassments happened twelve years before. This episode started the Chinese equivalent of #metoo movement, named #WoYeShi (#我也是), after the hashtag, used in Weibo (Chinese social media similar to Twitter), by which students and former students of more than 70 Chinese universities shared abuses and harassments suffered in the past. The professor accused of the case that ignited the movement in China was removed from the role in Beihang University.

It is important to remark that Chinese political sphere endures strong censorship that prevented many activists from protesting on the streets, thus amplifying the use of social media as main channel to show support to the recently born movement. Censorship brought activists to add a second hashtag to keep the movement going. They used a linguistic trick: Chinese words (rice) and (rabbit) pronounced singularly sound respectively “mǐ” and “tù”, thus remembering the American hashtag.

In 2019 the movement got new spotlight attention when Liu Jingyao accused billionaire Liu Quiandong (known as Richard Liu, CEO of e-commerce giant JD.com) of sexual harassments happened while she was studying at Minnesota University. Liu Jingyao had reported the billionaire, asking 50 thousand dollars of damages. The trial was awaited as an historic event, since it was to take place in the United States and because of the famous accused. Instead, the parts reached an agreement behind closed doors before the first day of trial.

Besides the trial never taking place, Chinese and international #MeToo movement acknowledged the importance of this report. Liu Jingyao’s sue highlighted systematic social issues, especially in entrepreneur culture.

Among the achievements of Chinese movement, we can name mechanism established by numerous universities of the country to prevent sexual abuses and harassments, started by #MeToo. Sexual abuses were added to the civil code in Chinese legislation by PRC in January 2021, while the Council of State published a decade-plane for the participation and empowerment of women and children.

MeToo movement’s Chinese chapter has also tackled defeats, like the case of known Zhou Xiaoxuan case. In 2018, encouraged by the wave of support for the MeToo movement, she complained on Weibo about famous TV host Zhu Jun for harassing her at work in 2014. The case acquired great importance for the Chinese movement, not only because it was among the first to go to court, but also because it fell in the new civil code that came into force in January 2021. The case stopped when Haidan court, north of Beijin, sentenced the proofs presented by the prosecution not sufficient.

The Chinese chapter of #MeToo movement also had to face episodes of strong repression by the authoritative government, like in the notorious case of Li Qiaochu, workforce and women activist, taken by the police and arrested in February 2021. Her arrest came a few months after her partner Xu Zhiyong’s, another known activist, and Ding Jiaxi, a human rights advocate. Li would be arrested following some public complaints of her about mistreatments Xi and Ding suffered in prison. The dates of Li trial are to be given, while she is being accused of “inciting subversion of national power”.

Some experts of Chinese society stressed that the movement have become too bulky due to the huge fame gained by activists, and this element translated into resentment in the most traditional wings of Chinese society. Inside Chinese government, the movement is often associated with the West influence, thus bringing external values potentially dangerous

to social stability.

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L'Autore

Laura Salvemini

Laura Salvemini, classe 1997, ha conseguito una laurea triennale in Mediazione Linguistica e Culturale presso l'Università degli Studi di Milano, specializzandosi in Cinese e Spagnolo. Dopo aver vinto una borsa di studio per approfondire la conoscenza della lingua e della cultura Cinese presso la Liaoning Normal University, unisce alla passione per la Cina e il continente Asiatico quella per le relazioni internazionali. Al momento è una laureanda presso l'Università di Bologna nel corso International Relations con un curriculum dedicato alla sicurezza internazionale. Nell'ultimo anno ha svolto un tirocinio come analista presso il Global Governance Institute di Bruxelles, il tirocinio MAECI CRUI presso l'ambasciata italiana di Kuala Lumpur ed è stata selezionata come tirocinante presso il Commissariato Generale Italiano ad Expo 2020 Dubai. Da Gennaio 2022 è parte della redazione di Framing the World come autrice per la sezione Asia ed Estremo Oriente.

Laura Salvemini, class of 1997, graduated from the University of Milan with a BA in Linguistic and intercultural communication, studying Chinese and Spanish. After winning a scholarship to attend a chinese language and culture course at the Liaoning Normal University, in China, she added her passion for Asia and China to her interest for International Relations. She's now graduating from the University of Bologna with a MA degree in International Relations, with a curriculum dedicated to International Security. In the last year she worked as an analyst at the Global Governance Institute in Bruxelles, was selected as an intern at the Italian General Commissariat at Expo 2020 Dubai and worked at the Italian Embassy in Kuala Lumpur. Since January 2022 she has been an author for the Asia and the Far East section in the Framing the World team.

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Cina MeToo Diritti Women's rights