For those against the presence of this particular coffee shop, Starbucks represents low culture, an icon of Western “fast food” similar to McDonalds and KFC (Yang, 2007). It is not compatible with the “museum culture,” or with the refined taste of Chinese cultural legacy condensed in the Forbidden City. The museum reserves the highest achievements of the Chinese civilization over its long imperial history, and is regarded as the cultural symbol of China. This context cannot be farther away from the context where Starbucks has thrived. The clash was summarized by Lin (2007), in whose opinion “[t]he classic, unique silence in the Forbidden City was lost in the roaring tides of commercialization and the globalization driven by multi-national corporations.” For many, the Starbucks inside the Forbidden City is an affront to the awe-stricken palace.
To protect “national dignity” (Beijing News, 2007), thousands of Chinese Internet users participated in a Web-based campaign initiated by the personal blog of Chenggang Rui (hereafter, Rui), a well-known news anchor for the English-language programs at the state-run China Central Television (a.k.a., CCTV), the most authoritative Chinese news outlet, and eventually drove Starbucks away from the Forbidden City. This case raises several interesting questions: why was an individual's blog so powerful? What theoretical frameworks can be applied to analyze this international public relations campaign, which seems to combine both brand globalization and Internet-based communication? And how could strategic public relations help manage the tension between the “coffee culture,” or more accurately the “fast food culture,” and the “museum culture” that is intensified by the new media?