A Chinese restaurant in Tokyo that sparked an online backlash for banning Chinese and Korean customers has switched tactics.
It’s taken down the signs for fear of legal repercussions. Instead, it’s put up banned political posters depicting Xi Jinping as Winnie-the-Pooh and referring to the 1989 Tiananmen massacre in the hope that 'little pink' supporters of Beijing will stay away.
The owner of the "China Empress Ciqi" restaurant featured in a social media video by Chinese influencer Youtou Siliufen earlier this month saying that "Chinese people make me feel sick," in scenes that prompted a massive nationalistic backlash on Chinese social media.
In the video, an outraged Youtou Siliufen visits the restaurant and quizzes the owner about the sign before calling in the cops, who say they have made his concerns known to the owner, who has chosen to leave the signs in place.
The video prompted a number of other Chinese internet celebrities to turn up and confront the owner, prompting police to step up patrols in the area, local media reported.
Then, the restaurant started getting inundated with phone orders from furious internet users in China, and was forced to close for several days.
The spat comes after a wave of anti-Japanese sentiment swept China in August after Beijing criticized the release of wastewater from the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant into the ocean, sparking fears of tainted seafood and environmental damage.
Japanese businesses and public venues from concert halls to aquariums also were targeted by large numbers of nuisance callers from China, who posted video of themselves to social media making the calls and prompting Japan's top regional diplomat Hiroyuki Namazu to call on the Chinese Embassy to calm down supporters of the Communist Party dubbed "little pinks."
Now, the offending signs appear to have been taken down, and replaced by the kind of window display likely to stir further anger among Beijing’s online supporters.
Banned images
Posters depicting Chinese President Xi Jinping as Winnie-the-Pooh – an image that is now banned on China's tightly controlled internet – now decorate the plate-glass, according to multiple photos posted to X, formerly Twitter, this week.
Another poster likely to infuriate patriotic influencers shows two Chinese runners embracing, as the numbers on their shorts combine to form "64," a coded reference to the June 4, 1989, massacre of civilians by the People's Liberation Army, a topic that is strictly forbidden behind the Great Firewall.
Yet another poster calls for " Hong Kong Independence," an idea that Beijing claims was a driving force behind the 2019 protest movement for fully democratic elections that began in response to plans to allow extradition to mainland China.
The restaurant also bans recent arrivals from China, due to the ongoing wave of respiratory infections sweeping the country, citing the owner's wife's health.
Repeated calls to the Chinese Embassy in Tokyo rang unanswered during office hours on Monday, while written requests for comment went unanswered at the time of writing.
‘Bold move’
Current affairs commentators said the move was a shrewd one, as content featuring any of the posters would be immediately deleted by Chinese government censors, should any influencer try to take issue with them in a video.
X user @yukishoppu, who goes by the online handle Wild Dog, said original discrimination had been "transformed" into a fight for freedom.
"The little pinks can't come back from this," she told RFA Cantonese. "This is a bold move."
"Youtou Siliufen must be happy now, because the boss of the China Empress Cixi has stopped discriminating after being taught a lesson by him," she quipped. "Not only that, but the discriminatory message has been transformed into something that helps both Chinese people and Hong Kongers fight for freedom."
"I'd like to thank Youtou Siliufen for his contribution to freedom and democracy," they said.
Japan-based political commentator Wuyue Sanren said the aggressive behavior of some Chinese internet celebrities is enabled by the " Wolf Warrior" style displayed by Chinese diplomats under Xi.
"This is all to do with the so-called Wolf Warrior diplomacy and that whole culture," he said. "The boss of the China Empress Cixi could just be a stubborn old guy, or maybe he is narrow-minded, but once these people got involved, everyone started to feel that he might be right, because of their awful, nationalistic attitude."
According to Wuyue Sanren, the Chinese government is adept at using patriotic bloggers to stir up nationalistic sentiment to divert public attention from other social issues.
But they may not want another flame war with Japan ahead of the Taiwanese presidential elections on Jan. 13, he said.
"The Chinese government is likely to deal with this in a low-key manner, and send messages to various platforms telling them not to push this," he said. "If they make a big deal of this with the Taiwan elections next month, it won't be good for China."
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.