China’s elites think feminism is a foreign plot

An unprovoked attack on several women by drunken thugs has revealed something striking: Chinese leaders are more threatened by feminists than by violent gangsters. Communist Party bosses could hardly avoid addressing widespread public horror after the assault was captured by security cameras at a late-night barbecue joint in the northern city of Tangshan, earning billions of views online. Faced with this challenge to China’s self-image as a harmonious, low-crime society, officials, state media, China’s largest social-media platform and even a university dean have lined up to denounce the notion that China has a problem with gender-based violence. Instead, the ruling establishment has played up the problem of organised crime.