TAIPEI—When sexual assault accusations by a female employee at Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. began circulating on the Chinese internet over the weekend, thousands of the firm’s employees—and many more online—felt a spark of familiarity around the details of the incident.

The employee’s story, which she detailed in an 11-page account that first circulated within Alibaba before it went viral on China’s internet, struck a chord in part because many Chinese were deeply familiar with the drinking and peer pressure that took place before she was allegedly abused sexually—both by her boss and by a male business client.

Chinese authorities say they are still investigating what happened and have declined to share details. But inside and outside Alibaba, which employs more than 250,000 people in the country, a central focus has been the accuser’s description of being forced by her boss to drink until inebriated at a client dinner in the eastern Chinese city of Jinan.

The woman, whose name hasn’t been made public, alleged in her account that one of the clients at the table kissed and groped her before taking her into a separate room in the restaurant, where he continued to sexually harass her. She wrote that she later woke up naked in a hotel room with faint memories of her boss lying on top of her and sexually assaulting her.

In a Monday memo to employees, Alibaba Chief Executive Daniel Zhang said the company is “staunchly opposed” to what he described as the “ugly forced drinking culture” referenced in the employee’s account. Mr. Zhang said in the statement that the case revealed systematic problems in the company’s culture and that he would work to change them.

A spokeswoman at Alibaba declined to comment beyond referring to Mr. Zhang’s statement.

Drinking at client meetings has long been a reality of doing business in China, East Asia and beyond, where liquor and young women are frequently brought out by men as a way to build trust with clients and seal deals. In the Chinese business world, drinking often happens over the dinner table and at clubs, where participants are made to drink the same alcohol, frequently a potent spirit called baijiu that is made from fermented grains.

A 2018 study by Human Rights Watch, which analyzed 36,000 job postings in China between 2013 and 2018, found sexual objectification of female employees to be a common theme running through hiring notices. Some of China’s largest technology companies have boasted in recruitment ads of “beautiful girls” and “goddesses” working at the company, the report said.

Many women who read about the Alibaba incident say they identified with the female Alibaba employee.

“I really hate the drinking culture,” said Joy Zheng, a 25-year-old living in Shanghai who traveled frequently for business while working for a Chinese consulting firm. “I always say I’m allergic to alcohol even though I’m not,” said Ms. Zheng, who left to start her own investment firm in part because she couldn’t take the peer pressure anymore.

Alibaba CEO Daniel Zhang said the company opposes the drinking culture referenced in the employee’s account.

Photo: sun yilei/Reuters

When Ms. Zheng read about the woman’s story at Alibaba, she said she believed her and was hardly surprised. In China, “there’s an unspoken rule that when you agree to go on a trip with your supervisor, you agree to drink,” she said.

On China’s Twitter -like Weibo platform, several hashtags related to drinking, work and women have gone viral in recent days, collectively garnering hundreds of millions of views. More than half a million people participated in an online state media-run survey on drinking and work, in which the majority of respondents said they were “extremely opposed and could not accept” a culture where drinking is critical to business.

Some users posted photos showing people guzzling beer from large bowls and otherwise engaging in loutish behavior at what appeared to be corporate events. Others lamented that women are often encouraged to drink by their bosses, putting them in situations where they can easily be taken advantage of.

“Women get called at 3 a.m. to come out to drink, and they can’t leave until they’re totally drunk,” read one comment.

The People’s Daily, the Communist Party’s mouthpiece newspaper, on Monday criticized firms for neglecting their employees in an editorial that singled out drinking culture.

The state-backed All China Women’s Federation weighed in on social media Tuesday, calling on more women to emulate the Alibaba employee and push back against alcohol-related abuse.

The same day, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, the agency in charge of policing the behavior of Communist Party members, characterized the drinking culture described in the Alibaba incident as “vile” in a commentary posted on its website, while urging people to break with the “unspoken rules” that the woman allegedly faced.

Women’s rights advocates say peer pressure and drinking in work settings is particularly problematic in smaller cities, especially in fields that are built around winning government contracts. Major tech firms such as Alibaba, people in the tech industry say, likely have less of a drinking culture problem, given their global stature and practice of hiring highly educated graduates.

Still, the Alibaba employee’s allegations and Mr. Zhang’s response indicate the firm isn’t immune.

When the woman said she sought help from Mr. Wang’s supervisors after returning to Alibaba’s headquarters in the city of Hangzhou, she said Mr. Wang’s direct manager initially spoke to her only about the drinking incident.

“Do you think that without drinking, we would be able to win these accounts?” he said, according to her recollection. The manager couldn’t be reached for comment.

Chinese women’s rights activist Lü Pin said that while uncertainty remains over how authorities will ultimately handle the Alibaba incident, the discussion it has triggered about how alcohol and work events can be a toxic mix for Chinese women gives her hope that awareness about sexual harassment and how it occurs is on the rise.

China’s fledgling ##MeToo movement began in 2018, when allegations of sexual misconduct surfaced on university campuses and in the public-interest sector. But Beijing’s tight control over the internet and moves by authorities to suppress social activism have largely kept the movement in check.

“This is perhaps another new beginning for ##MeToo in China,” said Ms. Lü. “It is lifting the lid off the drinking business culture issue in China. From now on, it won’t be normalized. People will question it, debate it.”

—Qianwei Zhang in Beijing contributed to this article.

Write to Chao Deng at Chao.Deng@wsj.com and Stephanie Yang at stephanie.yang@wsj.com