Professor fired in abuse case as #MeToo earns rare win

Public allegations of sexual harassment are rare in China. Swift responses to punish the accused are rarer still.

- AMY HAWKINS

So a recent case at one of China's top universities, in which a student posted a video online accusing her supervisor of sexually harassing her, leading to his sacking, has created shockwaves.

On 21 July, a woman who identified herself as Wang Di posted an hour-long video on Weibo, in which she accused her PhD supervisor at Renmin University in Beijing, Wang Guiyuan, of physically and verbally abusing her for more than two years. The professor, a former Chinese Communist party representative at the university, threatened to block her graduation prospects, Wang Di said.

Her video included an audio recording of one encounter in which a man is asking to kiss a woman, who repeatedly refuses. "I am reporting my professor, Wang Guiyuan... for sexually harassing and forcibly molesting me, and requesting to have a sexual relationship with me," Wang Di said. The audio could not be independently verified.