Chinese Character - Will Starbucks move from the Forbidden City?

CITYLIFE / Hip & New






Will Starbucks move from the Forbidden City?

(CRI)
Updated: 2007-01-17 16:42





The Palace Museum made its first response to the public on Tuesday about
the Starbucks outlet at the venue. It said a decision about whether the
Starbucks outlet will be removed from the attraction will be made no
later than June. Negotiations are now in progress, Beijing Morning Post
reports.

Early this week, a blog by China Central Television host Rui Chenggang
aroused a wide-ranging dispute six years after Starbucks first opened an
outlet in the Forbidden City.

In his article, Rui Chenggang stated the Starbucks at Forbidden City is a
joke among western tycoons. He urges the Starbucks chairman and CEO to
get the cafe out of the Forbidden City.

However, Starbucks CEO Jim Donald replied to Rui Chenggang, saying the
company has always cooperated to respect and preserve Chinese cultural
heritage while doing business there. In fact, it was the Chinese side
that invited the chain to open a shop in the Forbidden City initially.

Palace Museum spokesman Feng Naien emphasized that allowing Starbucks to
do business in the Forbidden City is not for profit, but meet consumer
demands.

"Negotiations are in progress for a solution," Feng Naien told the
Beijing Morning Post reporter. They have not disregarded public voices
concerning the Starbucks outlet in the Forbidden City. The result will be
determined within the first half of this year.

Starbucks is not the only American business facing a dilemma in the
Chinese market. During the Chinese Political Consultative Conference in
2000, Beijing CPPCC member Ma Yutian said foreign fast-food restaurants
run counter to the imperial garden style. Three years later, in 2003,
Kentucky Fried Chicken ceased its 10-year business in the imperial Beihai
Park.










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