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Hi readers,
Kris Wu, the Chinese pop idol, made headlines last month after being accused of sexual assault on Weibo. He was later arrested.
If you followed Chinese media at the time, you might have seen a local broadcaster take a dig at Wu by rapping this on air: “Thought he was a rapper, who would have expected a raper (rapist). Freestyle? Now he only has style, not free anymore.” Of course, netizens loved it and the bit went viral.
China’s Alibaba has found itself in the crosshairs of a similar incident when an employee at the ecommerce giant was recently accused of sexual assault. The victim says she had brought up the issue with the company’s HR team but did not receive any “reasonable” response. So, she took to social media to speak out about her ordeal. We took a look at the full story and what came after the storm.
Today we look at,
- The impact of a sexual assault case involving staff on Alibaba
- The Thai insurtech startup that caught Tencent’s eye
- Other newsy highlights, such as why JD.com withdrew the sale of 87 unapproved gaming titles and a new stock exchange for SMEs in China
PREMIUM SUMMARY
The impact of Alibaba’s sexual assault scandal
“Red-faced with embarrassment and shame, a few have even sworn to never wear their Alibaba staff badges when eating out in future.”
That was how some Alibaba staff felt after finding out that a fellow employee was sexually assaulted by her colleague, and then her efforts to get help were ignored by the human resources department, business unit leader, and group president. The incident went viral on Chinese media and sparked a host of new measures aimed at preventing sexual harassment and misconduct at Alibaba. But can the company regain the trust of its employees?
- Shots fired: Besides firing the assailant and banning him from being rehired, Alibaba also asked some of its senior managers to resign and issued demerits. These executives were said to have either downplayed the incident or neglected the victim’s pleas for help.
- Center of the storm: This has ignited conversations about Alibaba’s operations. Some of the staff felt that their higher-ups can no longer “resonate with problems of the day” while others accused HR of abandoning their commitment to the employees and sided with interests of upper management instead.
- The profit-above-all mindset: In the past, Alibaba was found to have been lenient to erring executives who are instrumental to its bottom line. Case in point: In 2020, Alibaba opted to remove its youngest partner Jiang Fan in 2020 instead of firing him over a reported affair.
Read more: How rape allegations at Alibaba sparked an internal firestorm
STARTUP SPOTLIGHT
The Thai insurtech startup that caught Tencent’s eye
Women founders, we got your back
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