German automaker Mercedes-Benz has apologized for “hurting the feelings” of the Chinese people after its Instagram account quoted Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, seen as a separatist by Beijing.
The apology marks the latest backpedaling by a foreign company for offending Chinese consumers with advertising or information that clashes with Beijing’s official position.
Mercedes-Benz’s seemingly benign post to its official Instagram account showed a car on a beach before rolling white-capped waves.
“Look at situations from all angles, and you will become more open,” the ad copy ran, citing the Dalai Lama.
“Start your week with a fresh perspective on life from the Dalai Lama,” the automaker wrote in the tagline.
The post immediately drew criticism from Chinese Internet users for quoting the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, whom Beijing accuses of being a “wolf in monk’s robes” seeking Tibetan independence through “spiritual terrorism.”
The Dalai Lama has called for granting Tibetans greater autonomy within China, but not independence.
While Instagram is blocked in China and inaccessible to most Chinese, and the Instagram post was penned in English, Mercedes-Benz quickly deleted the photograph after the outcry and issued an apology on China’s Sina Weibo social media platform.
“Even though we deleted the related information as soon as possible, we know this has hurt the feelings of people of this country,” Mercedes-Benz said in its statement.
The post “published extremely incorrect information, for this we are sincerely sorry,” the company wrote.
“We have immediately taken real action to deepen our understanding of Chinese culture and values, including among our colleagues abroad, and in this way regulate our behavior,” it wrote.
The online edition of the People’s Daily did not let up, running an editorial attacking Mercedes-Benz on Tuesday.
“Mercedes-Benz, you’ve made yourself an enemy of the Chinese people,” the headline of the newspaper’s editorial read.
“Some foreign companies are dredging up gold in China’s market at the same time as they are harming the Chinese people, what do they want to do?” it said.
Offending the sensitivities of Beijing has proven a problem for a number of foreign companies tapping the lucrative Chinese market.
Earlier this year, a spate of brands came under government criticism for online material that listed Chinese regions such as Tibet and Hong Kong as separate nations.
Marriott hotels even had its Chinese Web site and app blocked for a week by the authorities, while Spanish clothing giant Zara and Delta Air Lines were also called out.
Nor is this the first Dalai Lama Instagram post to provoke a backlash in China.
Last summer, British rock band Placebo was scheduled to perform at the Summer Sonic Festival in Shanghai — until they posted a photograph of the Dalai Lama on Instagram.
The photograph of the Dalai Lama resulted “in a lifetime ban by the Ministry of Culture in China,” the band said in another post acknowledging they would be unable to perform.
“We apologize to all the fans who were hoping to see Placebo perform,” the band wrote.
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
Russian hackers last year targeted a Dutch public facility in the first such an attack on the lowlands country’s infrastructure, its military intelligence services said on Monday. The Netherlands remained an “interesting target country” for Moscow due to its ongoing support for Ukraine, its Hague-based international organizations, high-tech industries and harbors such as Rotterdam, the Dutch Military Intelligence and Security Service (MIVD) said in its yearly report. Last year, the MIVD “saw a Russian hacker group carry out a cyberattack against the digital control system of a public facility in the Netherlands,” MIVD Director Vice Admiral Peter Reesink said in the 52-page
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS