Alibaba fires worker who accused boss of rape, as China suppresses #MeToo movement

The crisis at Alibaba first erupted in August, when a female employee (identified in court papers by her last name, Zhou) reported to the company that a manager (whose surname is Wang) assaulted and raped her during a business trip in July. The incident, she said, occurred after a “drunken night” entertaining colleagues at a business dinner. Another man at the dinner (a client of Alibaba) was also accused of assault.

After receiving no help from management, Zhou took matters into her own hands, unfurling a banner in one of Alibaba’s cafeterias and posting a video of her protest on the company’s internal website. “An Ali male executive raped a female subordinate, and no one in the company has pursued this,” she yelled in the video. She also published a lengthy essay about the alleged assault on Alibaba’s internal system.

As Zhou’s accusations sparked outrage within the company and on Chinese social media, Alibaba sprang into action, appearing at first to take Zhou’s allegations seriously. 

“Alibaba Group has a zero-tolerance policy against sexual misconduct, and ensuring a safe workplace for all our employees is Alibaba’s top priority,” the company said in a statement.

Management fired Wang and told employees in a company-wide memo that it would quickly put into place anti-sexual-harassment policies, as well as a dedicated channel for workers to report misconduct. 

Two senior managers also resigned for failing to take appropriate action after Zhou first aired her case. Alibaba CEO Daniel Zhang reportedly said he was “shocked, furious, and ashamed” about the misconduct case.

But in September, after investigating Zhou’s accusation, Chinese prosecutors announced they would not file charges against Wang, stating that he committed “forcible indecency” — which can include sexual assault but not rape — but that his actions did not constitute a crime. After receiving an administrative penalty for “indecency”, he was released. 

The client accused by Zhou was arrested in early September and is reportedly still under investigation regarding the incident.

Dismissed for ‘spreading false information’

Then, after taking initial crisis management measures, Alibaba terminated Zhou, stating that her original accusation violated the company’s code of conduct.

In a dismissal letter Zhou received in November, Alibaba wrote she had spread false information about the assault and the company’s handling of the case, resulting in “a bad impact”. The letter also said that the company faced legal consequences from other parties regarding her case, and suggested that it had sought Zhou’s cooperation to negotiate the termination but did not receive a response.

Zhou told the government-backed Dahe Daily news website that she “did not make any mistakes and certainly will not accept this result, and in the future will use legal means to protect my rights and interests”.

Alibaba also fired 10 other employees for leaking information about the incident.

Persistent suppression of high-profile accusations

Originating in the United States before going global, the #MeToo movement took off China in 2018, when a Beijing college student publicly accused her professor of sexual harassment. 

Zhou’s case is just one of a string of sexual assault allegations involving powerful men that have erupted on Chinese social media over the last few years. The most recent was made by tennis star Peng Shuai, who in November accused former Chinese vice premier Zhang Gaoli of sexual assault — the first time the fledging movement has taken aim at the Communist Party’s top leadership. 

Peng’s accusations, published on China’s microblogging platform Weibo, were removed by censors within minutes. Since then, the three-time Olympian has disappeared from public view, prompting global concern and calls from the administration of US President Joe Biden and the United Nations Human Rights Office to “provide independent and verifiable proof of her whereabouts”.

Assault survivors and #MeToo activists in China have had to contend with the Chinese Communist Party’s swift internet censors, a patriarchal society that frowns upon women who question the status quo and a legal system that places a heavy burden of evidence on the plaintiff — hurdles that have made it difficult for the movement to get off the ground.

“It is very difficult to stand up as a survivor of sexual abuse in China’s #MeToo movement, due to the hyper-controlled dissemination of information and gendered power inequalities,” Dusica Ristivojevic, senior researcher in interdisciplinary Chinese studies at the University of Helsinki, Finland, told FRANCE 24.

“Internet censorship is directly aimed at disabling collective organisation online and offline, which poses obstacles to activists. At the same time, activists and survivors are incredibly intelligent in finding ways to bypass the censorship”.

Some women are using creative hashtags like “米兔”, which is pronounced similarly to the English words “me too” (though its meaning, “rice rabbit” is entirely unrelated), in lieu of the direct Chinese translation “我也是”, which is restricted by censors. Other initiatives have cropped up outside of the controlled Chinese internet to allow people to express their support for survivors.

“The movement is very uncentralised and unstructured, and is more like a chain reaction”, Ristivojevic says. 

“Women are encouraged by previous testimonies to stand up, and they say that breaking their silence is a kind of relief. This may not even be related to the expectation of justice. When they are expressing themselves, what’s most important is boldness and encouraging others. Every #MeToo case is one step towards getting justice for all the brave survivors”.

However, the movement’s momentum can also be undercut by the social and institutional consequences, as well as lack of justice, for survivors who speak out.

“I will not appeal to other victims of sexual assault to come forth and share their stories, as doing so could cause them to suffer even more hurt”, Zhou said in her interview to Dahe Daily.

In September, a Beijing court also rejected former CCTV intern Zhou Xiaoxuan’s landmark #MeToo claim against a Chinese television anchor, three years after the civil case was filed, citing lack of evidence.

“It is very difficult to have solid, legally accepted proof for the Chinese courts, especially as sexual assaults usually don’t happen with witnesses”, Ristivojevic says.

#MeToo: A threat to the CCP?

As #MeToo dares to go after China’s technology elite and the highest echelons of the Community Party, the government increasingly views the movement as a threat to its carefully controlled image and sense of authority.

In controlling information around the movement, “the CCP has the intention of safeguarding itself and influential, powerful men,” Ristivojevic explains.

“Men in power misuse their power in very gendered and sexualised ways. By keeping control over the #MeToo discussion, the CCP is trying to protect its authority and symbolic capital. It’s about preventing feminist mobilisation and protecting its own status”.