Chinese university expels student for ‘harming nation’s dignity’ after one-night stand with foreigner

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Vivian Wang

BEIJING – A Chinese university said it would expel a student because she had had “improper contact with a foreigner” and “damaged national dignity”, after videos circulated online suggested she had been intimate with a Ukrainian video gamer.

The announcement set off heated debate in China.

Some commentators applauded the decision and said that Chinese people, particularly women, were too enamoured of foreigners.

But others said the expulsion smacked of sexism and paternalism and compared it with examples of people accused of rape or sexual harassment on campus who had been punished more lightly.

Many also criticised the university, Dalian Polytechnic University, in north-eastern China, for publicly shaming the student by posting its expulsion notice on its website last week and identifying the student by her full name.

“If there is anyone who truly undermined national dignity in this case, it was not the woman whose privacy rights were violated,” Dr Zhao Hong, a professor of law at Peking University in Beijing, wrote in an opinion column, “but the online spectators, who frantically humiliated an ordinary woman under the banner of so-called justice, and the educational institution that used stale moral commandments.”

The university said the student’s conduct, in an incident it said took place on Dec 16, had “caused a negative impact”. It gave no details but said she was being punished in accordance with a university regulation on “civic morality”.

That regulation reads: “Those who have improper contact with foreigners and damage the national dignity and the reputation of the school shall be given a demerit or above, depending on the circumstances.”

Chinese social media users quickly linked the announcement to videos