The Chinese blogosphere has been all abuzz over the call to have Starbucks removed from Beijing’s Forbidden City. The U.S. coffee shop, and let’s face it – icon, opened in 2000. Teresa Valdez Klein of Blog Business Summit examines this debate and states:
Any company that does business in China has to be aware of the phenomena that underlie this outcry.
She further highlights the role that the blogosphere has played to intensify the issue, indicating that,
Paying attention to the blogosphere is a necessity even when a company and the culture it serves are from the same culture of origin. But it goes doubly true when a company decides to cross cultural lines into wired countries like China.
According to this article, Starbucks has over the years taken steps to fade into the facade by removing its recognizable signage for example. It will be interesting however to see how this all plays out, particularly given a sentiment that Klein highlights – China’s issues of tradition and modernity.
