China’s #MeToo Movement: Fragile Yet Unbreakable

On April 16, the stories that ignited the #MeToo movement across the world won the Pulitzer Prize for public service, the most prominent award in U.S. journalism. The Pulitzer committee said these stories were honored for their “explosive, impactful journalism that exposed powerful and wealthy sexual predators, including allegations against one of Hollywood’s most influential producers, bringing them to account for long-suppressed allegations of coercion, brutality, and victim silencing, thus spurring a worldwide reckoning about sexual abuse of women.”

While the U.S. #MeToo movement has established important milestones for success, China’s #MeToo movement is still struggling. At the same time, however, it is developing into something distinct.

On the one hand, China’s #MeToo, like all other social movements in China, is under heavy censorship from powerful authorities. China’s journalists, despite their best efforts, can’t provide the “explosive, impactful journalism” needed to help bring influential abusers to account.

On the other hand, #MeToo in China has become both a flame that has illuminated many other issues and a magnet that has attracted many other communities. China’s #MeToo has grown into a movement beyond itself.

The Start: Chinese Universities

China’s #MeToo started in Chinese universities and has largely remained on campus.

As 2018 began, the #MeToo movement in China was first ignited by Luo Xixi, a former student at Beihang University in Beijing. She publicly accused her former doctoral professor, Chen Xiaowu, of harassing her 14 years ago, by posting an article under the #MeToo hashtag on her Weibo.

Luo’s public accusation immediately drew national attention. Beihang University released a statement on its Weibo, claiming that the school had set up a special group to investigate the case, and that Chen had been suspended.

Luo’s case inspired many Chinese students to initiate a petition letter, calling for the establishment of an anti-sexual assault mechanism on campuses nationwide. Thousands of students from more than 30 universities across the country reportedly signed the letter.

But such a national campaign obviously put the Chinese authorities on edge. This petition letter was soon completely wiped from the internet. The trend of #MeToo on Chinese social media also seemed to die down.

Then, the suicides of two students, which happened 20 years apart but erupted online almost simultaneously in early April, once again attracted people’s attention and reignited fierce discussion among the public.

The first case, from 20 years ago, resurfaced under #MeToo recently. Gao Yan, a 21-year-old female student at the prestigious Peking University, committed suicide in 1998. One of her best friends as well as her former classmate recently came forward to accuse Gao’s former professor, Shen Yang, 62, of raping Gao, contributing to her suicide.

The other case, involving a 26-year-old male student, happened in March of this year. Tao Chongyuan, a postgraduate student at Wuhan University of Technology, jumped from the fifth floor of his dormitory building on March 26. Tao’s family accused his professor and supervisor, Wang Pan, 47, of exploiting, harassing, and insulting Tao, including coercing Tao to do housework for him everyday.

On his computer, Tao had kept a 100-gigabyte file, including a research paper on harassment on campus and numerous screenshots of messages between himself and Wang. Though the file did not contain substantial evidence of sextual harrassment, one screenshot showed that Wang forced Tao to refer to him as “Daddy” and to say “Daddy I love you forever.” This specific phrase immediately went viral on Chinese social media.

This case particularly focused people’s attention on homosexual harassment – a doubly sensitive topic in China, because it involves both sex and same-sex relations. But because of that double sensitivity, the usually silent Chinese LGBT community was awoken by #MeToo as well.

A Clear Line in Social Control

Superficially, the two suicide cases received contradicting reactions from the related universities.

Peking University immediately released a statement, claiming that it highly valued every teacher’s morality and had imposed strict codes of conduct for faculties. In terms of Shen Yang’s case specifically, Peking University said that Shen is no longer on its faculty now and in 1998, the school had issued an administrative penalty to Shen. The university did not elaborate on the nature of the penalty.

By contrast, Wuhan University of Technology remained hesitant to conduct any substantial investigation. At first, it directly denied any responsibility for Tao’s suicide. Faced with public anger, the university issued a more detailed statement days later, saying that the university was “very sorry for” Tao’s death, but it didn’t find that Wang Pan was guilty of the improper actions alleged by Tao’s family. Meanwhile, the university has been censoring current students harshly, forbidding them from talking to the media or posting online.

Comparing the two universities’ reactions, some Chinese citizens said that a prominent university in China is indeed better than a second-class one in every way, including when dealing with its own crisis.

However, reality turned out to be less positive than first appeared.

A small group of current students of Peking University decided to ask the university to fully release information on its investigation into Gao Yan’s case, according to the university’s code. Surprisingly, these students were summoned by the school’s authorities for talks. According to some of these students, the school authorities repeatedly interrogated them about their motive, emphasizing that this incident must have been “incited by a foreign power.” The university also contacted these students’ parents, forcing the students to drop their request.

On Chinese social media, any information about the students’ request for more information was heavily censored.

As for Chinese professional media, although they are still allowed to follow the two suicide cases, further questions about the unchecked power of Chinese professors and the problematic educational system would be instantly deleted online.

The Convergence of Various Social Forces

Despite the heavy censorship and harsh social control, it’s remarkable to see that various social forces have gradually converged under the #MeToo hashtag.

The so-called “foreign power” does exist in the movement, but in a positive and transparent way. Both Luo Xixi’s and Gao Yan’s cases were first exposed by Chinese who are now living in the United States, first Luo Xixi herself and then the friends of Gao Yan. They all publicly acknowledged their identities and admitted that they were inspired by the U.S. #MeToo movement. A lot of Chinese youth studying abroad also contributed to the movement by initiating petition letters or actively translating English reports on #MeToo to Chinese.

China’s domestic college students and alumni have demonstrated their outstanding strength, too. Faced with extreme pressure from both school and society, they haven’t given up. It’s not only the students from “prominent universities” like Peking University; the students from “second-class universities” also have been making efforts. Some students from Wuhan University of Technology, for example, kept sending internal information to Tao’s family in spite of the school’s warning. Some even organized a flash mob on campus to protest against the school and express sorrow over Tao’s death.

Meanwhile, more and more students and alumni have come forward to expose their professors’ misconduct. After the two sensational suicide cases, a series of new cases of on-campus harassment have been posted online. Students at Nanjing University, for example, have started a Weibo account, called “Me too blue whale,” especially to follow their university's information on sexual harassment.

Chinese feminist activists have also showed strong support for China’s #MeToo. Since China launched a fierce crackdown on civil-society community by arresting a number of lawyers, scholars, and activists in 2015, Chinese feminist activists have had very limited room to regain their roots. The #MeToo movement has rejuvenated these activists. Their voices on anti-harassment having been spreading online again.

Lastly, the LGBT community is gaining its voice in China now. Recently, in response to reports that gay content would be banned on Weibo, the “I am gay too” hashtag – a riff on #MeToo – began to go viral on Weibo. Many Weibo users used to hashtag to reveal their sexual orientation and their stories of being harassed or insulted under the hashtag. 

Although the hashtag was later banned by Weibo, the company also decided to reverse its previous decision to ban gay content.