Starbucks faces criticism in China after police incident at its outlet

Starbucks is reportedly facing heavy public criticism in China for the second time in less than three months after an incident at one of its outlets led to an uproar on state media as well as by online users.

For those unaware, the company made headlines after a Weibo user said that a few police officers who had been eating in front of a Starbucks store in Chongqing were asked by the staff to go elsewhere.

The user’s post about the incident went viral on the Twitter-like platform, which prompted the ruling Communist party's newspaper, People's Daily to publish a commentary, in which it labeled Starbucks as arrogant.

For a while now, Chinese consumers and media are becoming more aggressive about monitoring the behavior of big brands and protecting customer rights, especially from overseas.

In December, Starbucks had publicly apologized and conducted staff training and inspections across its 5,400 stores in the country after a state newspaper reported that two of its outlets had used expired items in its products.

After the most recent debacle, Starbucks apologized on its Weibo account for ‘inappropriate communications’ and countered that the whole incident was a misunderstanding. The company also asserted that its staff had not sent away policemen or filed complaints against them.

The coffee chain store continued to face lash backs with a few small companies announcing on Chinese TikTok equivalent Douyin, that they would forbid employees from buying drinks or arranging meetings from its shops.

Meanwhile, there were some proponents with a more moderate view of the matter. Hu Xijin, the former editor-in-chief of Global Times newspaper, and a prolific commentator urged Weibo users to view the incident as an unfortunate accident and not more. He further added that Starbucks's status should not be subject to stronger bias and criticism because of its foreign status.

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https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2022-02-15/starbucks-faces-backlash-in-china-over-police-incident-at-store#:~:text=Feb.%2015%2C%202022%2C%20at%204%3A19%20a.m.&text=The%20company%20came%20under%20scrutiny,by%20staff%20to%20move%20away