Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) has confirmed that former Taiwan’s Representative to Thailand, who took up the post of Taiwan’s Representative in Thailand in July 2022, was asked to leave Thailand, after less than a year in the job, following allegations of sexual harassment of his secretary during a trip to Northern Thailand.

Taiwan’s ‘’MeToo’’ movement is developing rapidly and another allegation of sexual harassment against, former Taiwan’s Representative, Chuang Sho-hang has caused bewilderment in both Thailand and Taiwan. The Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Thailand (TECO) stated that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) has issued a statement regarding this incident.

According to a Taiwanese newspaper, Chuang touched his female secretary’s hands in his car during the trip in December. During the business trip to northern Thailand, Chuang also invited the secretary to discuss the itinerary in his hotel room, but she refused. The newspaper claimed that this was not the only case of Chuang sexually harassing his staff.

Chuang refuted the allegation and stressed that holding hands is a form of encouragement to staff. Regardless of Chuang’e explanation, the incident of sexual harassment has led to his resignation. Taiwan’s MoFA stated that it did receive official sexual harassment complaints against Chuang and has since commenced an investigation into the allegations. Initial probes confirmed such allegations, which was why the ministry asked Chuang to resign from the Thailand office.

The MeToo movement in Taiwan started when a few staff of Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) were ignored when reporting sexual harassment cases to the DPP’s Women’s Department. On May 31^st, one of the DPP’s female staffs explained on her Facebook page how she was ignored by the head of the Women’s Department after she reported the incident, in which she was sexually harassed in September 2022 by a film director, who had cooperated with DPP for a long time.

A popular Taiwanese drama, “Wave Maker”, airing in late April, eerily foretold events concerning MeToo in late May. In this TV series, the main theme covered an incident of sexual harassment in a fictional ruling party. In reality, Taiwan’s MeToo movement came about due to the failure to deal with sexual harassment in the DPP.

Since May, this movement has not only spread in Taiwan’s political sphere, but has also extended to Taiwan’s entertainment industry.

By Franc Han Shih, Thai PBS World