A writer for the Netflix show Wave Makers (人選之人—造浪者) has accused exiled Chinese poet Bei Ling (貝嶺) of sexually assaulting her when she was a student at Chinese Culture University.
Bei has denied the accusations, describing them as a “fabrication.”
Writer Chien Li-ying (簡莉穎), who published an account of the alleged assault on social media on Friday, accused Bei of groping her and placing her hand down his pants while sitting on an air bed at the poet’s home when she was in her junior year at the university.
Photo: CNA
Chien said she had contacted Bei via e-mail because he was a friend of writer Susan Sontag, and she had planned a project to direct and stage Sontag’s Alice in Bed.
Before the incident, Bei had sent her a box of Sontag’s books, which had convinced her that he was trying to help with her project, she said.
In response to media queries, Bei said Chien’s account was a “pure fabrication.”
“She sought to impose experiences she had had with others or things that never happened on me,” he said.
Bei denied ever owning an air bed or sending Chien a box of Sontag’s books, adding that he did not recall Chien ever directing Alice in Bed, as the Taiwanese adaptation had a male director.
Victims of sexual harassment coming forward to confront their abusers indicates that society is moving forward, Bei said, adding that he “fully supported” such actions.
However, he said, if Chien tried to “pressure” him with something he could not be held accountable for, he “reserved the right to seek legal recourse to defend his reputation.”
Bei was a leader of underground literary and cultural movements in the 1980s prior to the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.
He was arrested by Chinese authorities in 2000 for publishing an edition of the Tendency (傾向) literary journal, which he cofounded, on a charge of “illegally publishing a foreign literary publication.”
Bei’s arrest triggered an international backlash, and he was released two weeks later and exiled to the US.
He moved to Taiwan in 2016 and obtained permanent residency in 2021.
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