Starbucks Incident Starbucks Incident in Brief

1. On January 12, 2007, CCTV host Rui Chenggang slammed the opening of a branch of Starbucks, a famous American coffee shop, in Beijing's Forbidden City as a waste of traditional Chinese culture, protesting in his personal name and asking it to move out of the Forbidden City. After that, media reports from all sides were overwhelming and netizens reacted strongly. Under the pressure of public opinion, Starbucks withdrew from the Forbidden City six months later. The incident is called the "Starbucks incident".

2. On July 15, 2007, shortly after Starbucks withdrew from the Forbidden City, Rui Chenggang wrote in his blog, "This latest decision by the Forbidden City administrators is reasonable and wise. Many famous world heritage sites around the globe have management organizations that do the same thing in this regard. There should have been only one brand in the Forbidden City, and that is - the Forbidden City. Not allowing other brands to appear is not an exclusion, let alone a monopoly, but a protection of the integrity of the Palace's own national brand and its heavy cultural symbolism."