Forbidden City’s Starbucks faces ire
"Beijing’s Forbidden City palace is considering closing a Starbucks on its grounds after protests led by a TV personality who says the American coffeehouse’s presence is eroding Chinese culture.
A news anchor for China Central Television has led an online campaign to remove the Starbucks, which opened in 2000 at the invitation of palace managers, who needed to raise money to maintain the 587-year-old complex of villas and gardens.
Starbucks’ presence ‘undermined the Forbidden City’s solemnity and trampled over Chinese culture’, the anchorman, Rui Chenggang, wrote in his blog. Xinhua said ‘thousands of Chinese’ backed the campaign but did not say how."
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