By Farah Master
HONG KONG (Reuters) - A group of&nbsp;Chinese&nbsp;female&nbsp;economists&nbsp;who met with U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet&nbsp;Yellen&nbsp;over the weekend have been lambasted on&nbsp;Chinese&nbsp;social media by some netizens who accused them of treason for&nbsp;meeting&nbsp;her and being "radical feminists".
Yellen, a trailblazer in the field of economics, had lunch with six female&nbsp;economists&nbsp;in Beijing on Saturday, an effort to spotlight gender diversity following&nbsp;meetings with China's largely male government leaders.
In one post which garnered close to 600 comments, an&nbsp;online&nbsp;user said female economist Hao Jingfang who attended the meal with&nbsp;Yellen&nbsp;was "not only a traitor but also a radical feminist."
Hao wrote&nbsp;online&nbsp;in response to queries as to why she attended the meal that "Yellen&nbsp;is the friendliest American official, she is always dedicated to developing friendly China-U.S. relations".
Some users&nbsp;called&nbsp;Yellen&nbsp;an "obviously dangerous person" asking why she was allowed to be officiated as a public guest in the country, while others&nbsp;called&nbsp;out the female&nbsp;economists&nbsp;as being pro-American.
"Look at the bunch, the anti-espionage law might come in handy," wrote a user&nbsp;called&nbsp;Shan3847, while another user wrote "Everyone around the table should be caught, no one is innocent. The United States is always so kind to help us expose the rebels."
Ahead of the&nbsp;meeting, a senior Treasury official had said the lunch with the&nbsp;Chinese&nbsp;economists&nbsp;would give&nbsp;Yellen, who was also the first woman to head the U.S. Federal Reserve, a chance to "interact with a number of people kind of outside the normal policy structure".
Chinese&nbsp;President Xi Jinping's decade as the ruling Communist Party's general secretary has seen the number of&nbsp;women&nbsp;in politics and top government roles decline and gender gaps in the workforce widen, with the government emphasizing more traditional roles for&nbsp;women.
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(Additional reporting by the Beijing newsroom; Editing by Devika Syamnath)

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Chinese women economists called 'traitors' online for meeting with Yellen