Sex has long been a potent political weapon in many authoritarian systems, but in the Chinese political universe it has evolved into a sharpened tool of character assassination, deployed against dissidents, whistleblowers, and exiles who refuse to fall in line. In a climate shaped by the rhetoric of suzhi (素质, “moral quality”) and the Confucian emphasis on social respectability, sexual morality becomes a battlefield—one where the Chinese state and its proxies know that a single insinuation can be more devastating than a dozen criminal charges. From Hong Kong activists smeared with deepfake pornography to mainland journalists framed as adulterers or sex addicts, the CCP’s weaponisation of sexuality is increasingly sophisticated, global, and chillingly effective.
The tactic is not new. In Beijing’s longstanding playbook for silencing critics, one of the most reliable steps resembles the French phrase cherchez la femme: find a woman, invent a scandal, and let shame do the heavy lifting. When veteran journalist Ching Cheong was detained in 2005, the charge of spying was deemed insufficiently damning, so state-aligned outlets painted him as a man with a mistress whom he allegedly financed with stolen secrets. The accusation had less to do with evidence than with moral ruin; Beijing understands that branding someone bu xiu (不羞, “shameless”) can fracture public sympathy faster than any national security claim. A few years later, popular commentator Charles Xue was paraded on television for a forced “confession” about hiring prostitutes—an extravagant shaming ritual that signalled political discipline more than legal accountability.
The last decade, particularly since the 2019 Hong Kong protests, has seen the tactic mutate into something far more gendered and digital. Women who reported sexual abuse in police custody, like protester Sonia Ng, found themselves subjected not only to disbelief but to a cascade of online sexual insults accusing them of promiscuity, attention-seeking, or secret sex work. The method is brutally simple: delegitimise the messenger by sexualising her. In a culture where lianmian (脸面, “face”) is precious, accusing a woman of selling sex is enough to plant doubt in the minds of bystanders and make her own neighbourhood hostile.
Now the weapon is migrating across borders. As Hong Kong activists fled to the UK, Australia, and Canada, the intimidation followed them in newly digitised forms. In 2025, exiled district councillor Carmen Lau discovered that neighbours at a former address in England had received envelopes containing deepfake pornographic images of her and text framing her as a sex worker. Thousands of kilometres away, former lawmaker Ted Hui and his wife were targeted with printed posters in Australia advertising sexual services, complete with photographs lifted from their social media. No credible criminal motive existed; this was political harassment engineered to stain reputation, sow fear, and send a message to the whole diaspora: you can run, but your honour cannot hide.
Even outside Hong Kong activism, the same pattern emerges. In Germany, exiled Chinese journalist Su Yutong found her address posted on an underground sex-work site, prompting men to ring her doorbell expecting sexual services. In the United States, a Justice Department complaint revealed that a Chinese state security operative attempted to commission fabricated sexual scandals—including prostitution and child pornography accusations—against a congressional candidate who happened to be a Tiananmen survivor. These operations exploit the global architecture of shame and stigma around sexuality, turning it into a transnational tool of coercion.
What gives these attacks such destructive power is the cultural logic behind them. In Mandarin discourse, xingluan (性乱, “sexual disorderliness”) is not merely a private failing; it signifies a deeper untrustworthiness incompatible with legitimate public voice. By portraying a dissident as sexually immoral, the state reframes dissent as depravity, eroding public solidarity and isolating the target. For women, the impact is doubled: they face both political punishment and gendered violence. Deepfakes, in particular, operate as a digital form of assault, violating bodily autonomy without ever touching the body.
Sex-as-slander succeeds where brute force sometimes fails. It invades private life, corrodes social ties, embarrasses employers, terrifies families, and leaves victims defending themselves against shadows. More than anything, it warns those watching: dissent will not just cost you freedom—it will cost you honour. As long as sexual shame remains a potent currency in Chinese political culture, the state and its allies will continue to spend it lavishly, at home and across the world.
Character assassination—what an appropriate definition for the mess we’re watching unfold across China and its far-flung political shadowlands. I’ve witnessed enough power games in Asia to know that when an insecure state wants to silence its critics, it doesn’t bother with intellectual debate or moral persuasion. No, darling. It reaches straight for the dirtiest tool in the drawer: sex. Not sex as pleasure, joy, curiosity, or liberation—the kind of sex Auntie approves of—but sex as a blunt instrument of shame. Sex as humiliation. Sex as psychological warfare. And that tells you everything about who really fears whom.
Let’s be honest: you don’t deepfake a woman into a porn clip unless you’re terrified of her voice. You don’t print fake sex-worker posters with a former Hong Kong lawmaker’s face unless you’ve run out of political arguments. And you certainly don’t send neighbours mail stuffed with fabricated erotica unless you know your target has already slipped beyond your physical reach. These smears aren’t signs of strength—they’re confessions of weakness. They reveal a regime so allergic to dissent it must outsource its courage to Photoshop.
And the gendered cruelty of it all—aiyo, that part makes Auntie’s blood boil. Women dissidents are always the first to be dragged through the mud because patriarchy knows exactly where society’s pressure points are. Call a woman promiscuous, hint she’s a sex worker, leak a fake photo, whisper “She’s not moral”—and suddenly people who should be defending her are crossing the street to avoid her. Meanwhile men get slapped with the “prostitute buyer” or “secret mistress” trope, because nothing horrifies the morality police more than a man behaving as a normal adult human. This isn’t just repression. It’s repression dipped in misogyny, rolled in puritanism, and baked in the toxic oven of “saving face.”
But here’s the part they don’t understand. Character assassination only works if the target believes you control their character. These activists, journalists, and exiles? They’ve reclaimed their narratives. Deepfakes don’t silence them. Sex-smear campaigns don’t shame them. In fact, every pornified poster and fabricated scandal only proves their resistance matters.
So let Auntie say it plainly: if a government must attack your sexuality to silence your truth, then your truth must be dangerously powerful. And if the best they can do is weaponise shame, then they’ve already lost the argument. Stay loud, stay brave, and don’t let anyone—not even a government with an army of digital trolls—tell you who you are.