LA Times Beijing chief sorry for sexual harassment allegation

Original 2018-01-12 Shanghaiist Shanghaiist

The #MeToo movement is making its mark in China once again, this time among the country’s foreign journalists with a sexual misconduct allegation surfacing against Jonathan Kaiman, the Los Angeles Times Beijing Bureau Chief and President of the Foreign Correspondents Club.

Earlier today, Laura Tucker, a former friend and roommate of Kaiman’s, published a post on Medium, describing how Kaiman allegedly pressured her into having sex with him nearly five years ago.

Tucker writes that Kaiman became her first friend upon moving to Beijing in 2011 and was her roommate for the first year that she lived in the city. Their relationship changed on the night of March 15th, 2013 when they went back to Tucker’s apartment after drinking together at a nightclub, got into bed, and began kissing and undressing.

However, after a few minutes, Tucker says that she changed her mind and decided that what they were doing needed to stop. She stood up, but Kaiman refused to leave her bed and instead remained laying down and “seemed to pout.”

“I remember that I made a point of clearly saying ‘no’ and ‘I don’t want to do this,’” writes Tucker. “Although I can’t remember what else I said, I clearly remember feeling confused and dismayed that he wasn’t leaving, or even moving, and that he didn’t seem to believe that I knew what I knew I wanted.”

Eventually, Tucker says that she concluded that the “easiest, least confrontational way forward” was to climb back into bed with Kaiman. “We had sex, and I felt gross for all of it,” she remembers. “He left immediately after.”

The following day, Tucker spoke about what happened to a friend and then sent Kaiman an email:

I woke up this morning feeling really stupid and unhappy. Hard to say, I guess, how drunk we were but I stood up and said “no” and “I don’t want to” several times while you lay sprawled on my bed using, I think, the familiarity and comfort of our friendship as grounds for entitlement and pressure. I resigned myself to the logic of just going ahead with a situation that I helped create. I am really sad that I didn’t stand up for myself and think it is too bad that you had no intention of reacting to my words.

Tucker says that Kaiman called her a short time later and apologized. The two agreed to meet up at a café over the weekend.

However, Tucker writes that rather than try to talk things out, Kaiman started to “renege on his apology” and the conversation quickly became about how much of the blame she shared for what happened.

“I very clearly remember near to the end of our conversation he said, ‘I don’t think this makes me a monster.’ But I had never accused him of being a monster, and suddenly the whole discussion felt pointless,” Tucker explains.

Tucker writes that while she continued to remain friendly with Kaiman following the encounter, she stopped enjoying being around him, particularly when he was drinking. Tucker left Beijing a short time later and felt that the situation was never really resolved and that Kaiman never understood why what he did was wrong.

Following the launch of the #MeToo movement in the United States, Tucker decided to try again, going public with her story, wanting to add her voice to the “broader outcry against sexual misconduct.” She writes:

I was pressured into sex by an opportunistic friend. I explicitly voiced my lack of consent several times, and my words had no effect. Jon did not listen to me, did not respect my wishes or my space, and wasn’t open to the evening ending another way. I realize now that this was not my fault, that I should not have had to do anything further, and that I do not share the blame. This was Jon’s fault. I wish I had seen it so clearly then and spoken out more, but instead I decided to try to move on.

Tucker’s account quickly caused a stir among China correspondents on Twitter with many prominent journalists calling for Kaiman to make an official response to the allegations.

Though others also argued that he did not need to respond to the post.

Later, Kaiman did respond to Tucker, tweeting:

I am so, so deeply sorry — I did not in any way mean to pressure you into an unwanted or uncomfortable sexual encounter, and I thought we had talked through the issue as peers and friends.

However, I very clearly didn’t understand the extent of your feelings. I’m sorry I caused you pain, as that was never my intention.

It would be wrong for me to think I could offer any remedy or solution here, but if you’d like to talk — either directly or through an intermediary — or anything else, please let me know.