By Canadian Press

A PhD student at a top Chinese university publicly accuses her supervisor of sexual harassment

Jul 22, 2024 | 2:15 AM

HONG KONG (AP) — A female PhD student at one of China’s top universities took social media by storm after accusing her academic supervisor of sexual harassment and said he threatened to stop her from attaining her doctorate for refusing his advances. Her school said Monday it launched an investigation.

The woman, who identified herself as Wang Di and said she studied at Renmin University of China’s School of Liberal Arts, posted Sunday a 59-minute video, in which she briefly held up an identification card on the Chinese social media platform Weibo and talked about how she was abused.

Wearing a mask, she claimed the professor, an ex-vice dean and a former Communist Party representative at the school, physically and verbally abused her. She also said for more than two years, he assigned her many unpaid tasks, scolded her, and threatened that she would not graduate after she rejected him.

Wang Di shared a screenshot showing messages between her and the said professor in which he asked they meet at his office for a discussion on May 21, 2022. She also uploaded some audio clips which she said were evidence of the harassment. In one, a man could be heard trying to kiss a woman who kept saying: “No, no, teacher.”

“At this moment, I can no longer endure it and have nowhere to retreat, so I am speaking out,” she wrote. Her post drew 1.73 million likes as of Monday early afternoon, with many users leaving comments in support of the student who demanded the professor be legally punished and a new supervisor be appointed for her. She also said she was willing to be held legally responsible for her accusations against the professor.

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The Associated Press could not independently verify the recordings and Wang’s claim.

Renmin University said Monday it took the online complaint seriously and had set up a task force to investigate the allegations, adding it has zero tolerance toward any teacher’s ethical misconduct and pledging to announce the probe results in days.

The professor has not immediately responded to the AP’s request for comment.

In China, public accusations of sexual harassment have become rare in recent years following a brief uptick because of the #MeToo movement, swiftly snuffed by the government. The Chinese ruling Communist Party viewers powerful social movements as a potential threat to stability and its hold on power.

In June, a Chinese journalist who promoted women’s rights as part of the nascent #MeToo movement was sentenced to five years in prison on charges of incitement to subvert state authority, according to her supporters.

In one of the most high-profile cases, former Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai also disappeared from the public eye after accusing former high-level official Zhang Gaoli of sexual assault in 2021. Her accusation was quickly scrubbed from the internet and discussion of it remains heavily censored.

Kanis Leung, The Associated Press