China's Boozy Work Culture Fuels a #MeToo Reckoning

Companies are updating employee guidelines to tackle excessive drinking and sexual harassment

- By James E.Ellis, Rachel Evans, and David Rocks

Erine joined the Chinese ride-hailing service Didi Global Inc. in 2020, she says, attracted by the opportunity to work for one of the world’s hottest tech companies. That July she had one of her first assignments in a small town—a client meeting that ended with a banquet, the food washed down with many bottles of red wine and the Chinese liquor called baijiu.

That wasn’t unusual: Chinese business dinners often involve lots of alcohol, not unlike the boozy work meetings of 1960s New York featured in Mad Men. Erine, now 33, was the only woman at the table, and she says she felt obligated to join the heavy drinking and keep going when the party moved to another restaurant. The next thing she says she remembers is the client groping her in the back seat of a car, then again in her hotel room. Later, on social media, she posted screenshots of a swollen left eye and mouth—injuries sustained when the client sexually assaulted her, she says.

Two days after the alleged incident, Erine reported the case to the police, who dropped the investigation a month later, and a prosecutor’s report found no medical evidence to prove “forced indecency,” a term that can encompass sexual assault in China. Erine began publicizing her story on social media but got little attention.