Starbucks was the target of a firestorm of online comments and criticism after a Weibo user described an incident in which a policeman eating his lunch in front of a Starbucks store in the Ciqikou neighborhood in southwestern China’s Chongqing city on Feb. 13. was driven off by Starbuck’s staff claiming that the policeman eating in front of the store damaged Starbucks’ image.
In the next three days, Starbucks-related posts were listed as the hottest topics on Chinese social media platforms, with most of the comments that Chinese media and netizens left being negative. The Chinese Communist Party’s official mouthpiece People’s Daily led the trend.
