Court Ruling Deals A Blow To China's Faltering #MeToo Movement

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2021/09/15/ [login to see] /court-ruling-deals-a-blow-to-chinas-faltering-metoo-movement
One of China's most prominent #MeToo cases has concluded with a Beijing court ruling that it could not determine whether sexual harassment occurred, a blow for gender equality advocates and for China's faltering #MeToo movement.

"I have done all that I can. I knew this would be the last hearing, but I never imagined it'd turn out like this," said a tearful Zhou Xiaoxuan after her court hearing this week. She had alleged that Zhu Jun, a well-known television anchor, groped and forcibly kissed her in 2014 in a dressing room at CCTV, China's state broadcaster, where she was briefly an intern. Zhu denies the allegations.

She had asked for a public apology as well as RMB50,000 ($7,600) in damages.

"I'm very regretful to tell everyone that I lost" she says. Zhou says she will appeal, claiming the court blocked her efforts to obtain and present significant evidence.

And she faces a countersuit for defamation from Zhu Jun.

Zhou's allegations against Zhu — first publicized in a series of posts she wrote on the social media site Weibo in 2018 — coincided with a number of high-profile sexual assault cases in the U.S., including against disgraced media mogul Harvey Weinstein. The account by Zhou, who is also known by the nickname Xianzi, helped galvanize China's own reckoning with the country's deeply-entrenched gender inequalities and biases.