Sexual Assault in China
My topic idea comes from the recent news about Chinese tennis player Peng Shuai’s sexual assault accusation against former vice-premier Zhang Gao Li and her subsequent disappearance.
The MeToo movement which started in New York in 2006 and was revived in 2017 in America finally took root in China in 2018. Since then, some Chinese institutions such as universities and Alibaba have supported sexual assault victims, claiming they have a “zero tolerance” policy, following victims’ allegations against a professor and Alibaba manager (The Straits Times). However, some professors from the school have accused the movement of being merely “foreign-influenced” and police closed the investigation on the Alibaba manager after detaining him for 15 days. Clearly, more has to be done. More recently, famous singer/rapper Kris Wu was arrested in Beijing for sexual assault. Though it has achieved major success in empowering sexual assault victims, the MeToo movement in China has always faced heavy censorship, with the government deleting #MeToo posts and “Beijing police detaining five feminist campaigners” (The Straits Times). In my essay, I want to explore the connection between sexual assault in China, China’s MeToo movement (and its censorship), and gender roles’ contribution to the problem.
I am currently leaning towards the argument the solution to sexual assault in China is increasing government efforts to reduce systemic gender inequality. I think that reducing media censorship is a big part of the solution, however, China’s long-standing patriarchy is the main reason why sexual assault has not been handled correctly or hidden in many cases. Falling behind many other countries, in 2020, China passed its “first civil code, Article 1010, which clarifies what conduct may be considered to be harassment” (Puckett, Hao, Quan). Before this, Chinese law lacked a legal guideline for what constitutes sexual harassment. Furthermore, “Guanxi” (which translates to personal connections, relationships, or social networks) is heavily embedded in Chinese business culture and exacerbates sexual harassment. In the Kris Wu case, young girls were lured by “female lead opportunities in music videos and singing contracts” (Sng). Work drinking is a place where women are commonly viewed and even served as commodities for men.
Because of social media’s tendency to blow up individual news cases, it is easy for many people to focus on the details of specific sexual assault cases and judge the Chinese government based on what they did in each case, which can range from the disappearance of a victim (Peng Shuai case) to formal arrests of the assaulter (Kris Wu case). But, in doing so, we lose focus of the bigger picture which is China’s patriarchy, the underlying cause of sexual violence against women. It is important to pay attention to cases of government censorship because it involves the safety of those who risk their lives to tell the truth, however, the need to hold China accountable for its human rights violations is separate from the long term solution to protecting women in China from sexual assault.
For my global perspective, I will compare the way sexual assault is dealt with in China to other countries’ solutions to this problem to determine what needs to change for sexual assault to be prevented and victims to be heard in China. Specifically, I want to examine other governments’ efforts in reducing gender inequality and whether or not it led to decreased sexual assault.
