By Phoebe Zhang

Copyright scmp

As Beijing gears up to host a global summit on gender equality and women’s empowerment, Chinese authorities and non-governmental organisations have been engaging in discussions on issues ranging from traditional family values to the rights of women in the digital age.
The summit is understood to be planned for some time in October, although details have yet to be announced.
The foreign ministry said on Monday that the event would take place “soon”, but did not elaborate.
Stressing that women’s rights in China had advanced greatly in the past decades, ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said: “In promoting gender equality and women’s all-round development, China is not only an advocate but also an active actor.”
Several international officials and organisations are expected to attend. However, domestic grass-roots NGOs were not likely to be invited unless they were sponsored by overseas entities, sources told the South China Morning Post.
Two books by President Xi Jinping published earlier this month featured selected speeches and articles covering issues ranging from gender equality to traditional family values, and instructing China’s women’s federation not to become like Western feminist groups.
State news agency Xinhua said that the books highlighted China’s wisdom, proposals and approaches in promoting gender equality.

Announced by Foreign Minister Wang Yi in March, the summit will commemorate the 30th anniversary of the UN’s Fourth World Conference on Women hosted by Beijing.
The 1995 conference was widely regarded as a global turning point for gender equality with the adoption of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, which set the agenda for women’s empowerment in 12 critical areas.
It was a watershed moment for China as well, nurturing two decades of growth for the country’s feminist movement and NGOs focusing on women.
In a white paper published last week, China reviewed the “practices and achievements” in women’s rights in the new era, in one of many gestures seen as a warm-up to the coming summit.
“Chinese women have never before enjoyed such enormous opportunities to live up to their potential and realise their dreams,” the white paper said.
Numerous seminars and documents this year have repeated this point. In a series of round tables in May, the China Women’s University in Beijing invited professors present at the 1995 conference to share their insights and review the UN’s gender equality strategy.

Last month, academics, government consultants and officials from the All-China Women’s Federation got together with representatives from the Beijing office of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) to discuss gender equality in different aspects of society.
According to a UNFPA report, participants pointed out challenges including women’s reproductive rights, toxic social norms, and gender equality in the digital age.
This year has seen renewed attention on women’s rights in the digital age. China highlighted the issue during a March session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women, which reviewed progress since the 1995 Beijing Declaration.
In her address, Huang Xiaowei, deputy head of the National Working Committee on Children and Women under the State Council, underscored the need to harness technological innovation to advance women’s development.
Experts and state media have echoed the point. “Chinese women are participating in the digital economy at an unprecedented scale,” People’s Daily noted in a commentary in March.
The digital economy had provided jobs for women, the article noted, adding that more than half the shop owners on e-commerce platforms were female, many of them from rural areas.
The commentary also highlighted government initiatives such as training in programming and data analysis, along with efforts to create opportunities for women and girls to pursue careers in science and technology.

At Hello Mulan, a tech-centred conference held in Shanghai this month, experts said that technological innovation was a key driver of gender equality and could empower women economically.
“With the impact of technological advances, particularly in artificial intelligence (AI), large-scale models and digital technologies, the focus of human development has shifted from relying on physical strength to relying on intellectual capability,” said Kong Dongmei, founder and president of the charity Dongrun Foundation.
However, Li Yingtao, a professor at Beijing Foreign Studies University and an expert on gender issues who attended the 1995 conference, cautioned that challenges remained and solutions were still needed.
At a seminar held by the University of Hong Kong’s law faculty in March, Li said the knowledge base and resources used by AI models were already imbued with gender biases, which could perpetuate gender-based violence.
“There is much work to be done,” she said. “We need to recognise issues such as internet safety and gender-based violence facilitated by technology, such as doxxing.”
These issues have sparked widespread public discussion in recent months.
In July, there was public anger after news reports exposed online groups that were sharing sexually explicit images of women without their consent on foreign social media apps, including Telegram.
The victims have faced a number of legal hurdles, according to local media reports, as police do not know how to lodge a case outside their jurisdiction and filing a lawsuit would require the alleged perpetrator’s information.