Liu Jingyao is not the first young woman to accuse a powerful Chinese businessman of rape. She is not the only Chinese woman to confront a man and seek legal charges against him.
But she is one of the first to pursue her case in a U.S. courtroom.
That could make all of the difference for Liu — and for the nascent #MeToo movement in China.
Jury selection begins Thursday in Minneapolis in the civil trial against one of the world’s most prominent tech billionaires, known as Richard Liu in the English-speaking world and as Liu Qiangdong in China. He is the founder of JD.com, an e-commerce giant in China that draws comparisons there to Amazon.
Liu Jingyao, who is unrelated to Richard Liu, says that the businessman followed her back to her Minneapolis apartment and raped her after an alcohol-soaked 2018 dinner for Chinese executives that she attended as a University of Minnesota volunteer, according to court filings. He has denied the allegations, insisting that the sex was consensual.
Local prosecutors that year declined to charge Richard Liu with sexual assault. Mike Freeman, the Hennepin County attorney, said at the time that it was a “complicated situation,” and his office determined that there were evidentiary problems that would have made it highly unlikely that a criminal charge could be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
But Liu Jingyao, who remains in the United States and has endured a barrage of attacks on Chinese social media, has persisted in her efforts to seek a decision through the civil court system, where the burden of proof is lower. She is asking for at least $50,000 in damages.
The trial is significant for the fact that it is happening at all. Richard Liu is one of the highest-profile Chinese figures accused of sexual assault or rape to face the scrutiny of a courtroom jury. Such accusations against well-known business executives and politicians rarely make it to trial in China, where the ruling Communist Party has repeatedly quashed the country’s small but spirited #MeToo movement.
Xiaowen Liang, a Chinese feminist activist and lawyer based in New York, said that while the events had taken place halfway across the world in Minneapolis, the story was all too familiar for women in China.
“Many women in China have had similar experiences with this workplace culture of drinking, dinner and sexual harassment,” Liang said.
If Liu Jingyao wins the case, she added, it could inject some much-needed momentum into China’s struggling #MeToo movement by inspiring Chinese feminists to continue their advocacy. “Especially under these circumstances where all the grassroots organizing effort has been cracked down on in China, this would be the win that we all need.”
The case has riveted China since the accusations first surfaced, and the trial comes at an exceedingly sensitive time for the country’s top leader, Xi Jinping, who is expected to take an unprecedented third term during an important political meeting that opens in Beijing on Oct. 16.
Such events are often tightly choreographed, and official censors typically go into overdrive before the meetings to minimize disruptions. Chinese government authorities may see the accusations against Richard Liu as less threatening because he is a private sector executive, but they also may not want the case to draw attention away from Xi.
The trial is expected to shed new light on the private dealings of China’s political and business elite — information that the Communist Party would almost certainly prefer to keep hidden. In her court filings, Liu Jingyao has already recounted details, including conversations about private jets and mistresses, that describe an unseemly side to wealthy, jet-setting Chinese businessmen with high-level political connections.
According to court documents, among those who attended the Minneapolis dinner were Li Botan, son-in-law of Jia Qinglin, a former member of China’s Politburo Standing Committee, the country’s elite decision-making body; and Li Wa, who has gone into business with Xi’s brother-in-law, Deng Jiagui.
Liu Jingyao, who grew up in China, had just transferred to the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management in the summer of 2018 when a professor recruited her to volunteer for a weeklong business executive program. Toward its end, she said in court filings, one of the Chinese executives invited her to a Japanese restaurant in Minneapolis for what she thought was a dinner to honor the volunteers.
When she showed up, she was shown to a seat at a table with 15 middle-aged men and was instructed to sit beside Richard Liu, she said in court documents. At Chinese business dinners, it is customary for young women to be placed next to important middle-aged men to entertain them. Among the group of men, Richard Liu was the best known — a celebrity in China, known for his humble beginnings, his enormous wealth and his high-profile marriage to Zhang Zetian, a social media icon known as Sister Milk Tea.
Over the course of the more than two-hour dinner, according to the filings, the party made numerous toasts, and Liu Jingyao was pressured to drink repeatedly. The man sitting across from her passed out on the table from drinking, based on surveillance video submitted to the court.
After the dinner, she left with Richard Liu and two of his assistants in a chauffeured car. Inside, he began to grope her without her consent, she said. The chauffeur said in his deposition that Richard Liu had “overpowered” and “manhandled” Liu Jingyao at one point, but he also told police that he hadn’t heard anyone protesting or asking for help.
Richard Liu accompanied Liu Jingyao back to her apartment and entered uninvited, she asserted in the filings. Several hours later, Liu Jingyao told a fellow volunteer that she had been raped after a “prolonged struggle.” The person contacted police, she said in the filings.
“We have gathered so much more evidence than the police did in their investigation,” said Wil Florin, a lawyer for Liu Jingyao.
Richard Liu’s team disputed her account and said her recollection of events had shifted.
They have pointed to statements given by Liu Jingyao in which she wavered on the question of whether she was raped. They have also cited surveillance video that appeared to show her pressing the elevator buttons in her apartment building without hesitation, saying it contradicted her statement to police that she had been too drunk to see the buttons clearly.
“There are dozens and dozens of inconsistent statements she has made — and big ones,” said Diane Doolittle, an attorney for Richard Liu.
Outside the community of overseas Chinese students and diaspora Chinese, the case has drawn a muted reaction in the United States compared with other #MeToo cases. Some local activists, though, have raised questions about the University of Minnesota’s handling of the events, including the role a professor played in helping Richard Liu secure a lawyer in the immediate aftermath of his arrest.
Jake Ricker, a university spokesperson, said that the university typically did not comment on active litigation. He added that the university had “fully and appropriately” responded to the situation when it arose in 2018.
Liu Jingyao graduated from the university in the spring and is in a graduate program at Washington University in St. Louis.
She is seeking compensation and punitive damages in the case against Richard Liu and JD.com, who are named as co-defendants, though a judge earlier rejected her motion for punitive damages against the company. The dinner was paid for using a JD.com corporate credit card, according to her filings. Richard Liu stepped down as CEO of JD.com in April, although he remains chair of the company.
Richard Liu, who is worth as much as $11.5 billion, according to Forbes, is expected to testify in court in Minneapolis after the trial begins Monday, his lawyers said. Over the weekend, photos on Chinese social media appeared to show him shopping at a store in Minneapolis with his pregnant wife.
Liu Jingyao said in court filings that she experienced post-traumatic stress disorder and that she was under a constant cloud of fear that Richard Liu could use his power and influence to retaliate against her and her family in China. For nearly two years after she came forward, she faced an onslaught of criticism from Chinese internet users. Hashtags relating to her case were viewed hundreds of millions of times. On social media, she was called “a slut,” “a liar” and “a gold digger,” among other names.
But she has a strong base of supporters. In 2019, many rallied behind her using hashtags such as #NoPerfectVictim, sparking a broader debate in China about rape culture and consent.