As the epitome of the considerate foreign resident, Imagethief is sensitive to the need to preserve China's cultural heritage. That's why I do not deface monuments or ridicule the metropolitan statuary (excessively) and why I did not fart loudly when visiting Mao's mausoleum. It's also why I can understand why a celebrity CCTV compere such as Rui Chenggang feels it necessary to attack the Starbucks at the Forbidden City.

The controversy over the Forbidden Starbucks is, of course, cold coffee grounds, dating back to the first brewing of dissent back in 2000. It's no surprise that people were annoyed at first. Sight unseen, the thought of a Starbucks defacing the legendary Ming-dynasty grandeur of the Forbidden City seems, well, a bitter mouthful.

But in the years since Starbucks brewed its first mediocre latte in the famous, imperial redoubt, Beijingers have become used to seeing the shops in every available space. It's second only to coal smoke and yappy dogs in its ubiquity in Beiijing. For that reason, I'd guess most of us thought the Forbidden City Starbucks controversy was dead and buried. Wishful thinking.

Nevertheless, I empathize with Rui's complaint. His point has some substance. The Forbidden City is a legitimate national treasure and one of the most powerful symbols of Chinese culture and history. Bedecking it with foreign brands is, well, a bit discordant to say the least. Would I want the Golden Arches on the Golden Gate Bridge? Of course not.

But emphathizing and understanding is not the same as agreeing. And drawing easy comparisons with Versailles and the Taj Majal makes for great rhetoric, but it doesn't really say much about the actual situation with the Forbidden City Starbucks.

The reality is that in situ the Starbucks is pretty inoffensive, at least to my sell-out, brand-polluted, Western eyes. It's about 100 low-key square meters in a 720,000 square meter palace, or roughly 0.014% of the total area. (Admittedly, two thirds of the Forbidden City is, um, still forbidden, but the Starbucks remains a relatively low percentage given over to mass market coffee.) It doesn't particularly jar with the surroundings.

The real problem with the Forbidden City is not the Starbucks. The Forbidden City should be one of the world's great museums, but isn't. This it not Starbuck's fault. This is because the exhibits are randomly arranged, the signage is poor, and the explanations of the displays are --as I recall-- only in Chinese. Essentially the Forbidden City is a fabulously grand building enclosing a marginal museum. That doesn't mean you shouldn't go. If you visit Beijing for the first time, by all means check it out. The structure is splendid, the recently restored sections look great, and there is some interesting stuff on display. But be prepared to wade through the touts on the way in, deal with the restrictive opening hours and relatively steep admission price, and to pay for the Roger Moore self-guided tour tape so you have some idea of what you are looking at. And bring a snack because once you are inside this enormous facility you will find precious few concessions.

Or that's my memory, at any rate. I haven't been inside for a couple of years. The Forbidden City is getting the obligatory pre-Olympic face lift (much of it being guided by foreigners, I gather), so perhaps these niggles will be addressed.

The nice thing about singling out the easy target of Starbucks is that it plays on cheap, nationalist sentiment while completely avoiding a related but much larger and more important discussion about the preservation of China's national patrimony and the history of its defilement. Conceding the depravities of the Allied Powers and the looting of all the good stuff by the Kuomintang on their way out the door, the vast majority of the damage to China's cultural and natural heritage has been inflicted by the Chinese themselves. Remember 70% good, 30% bad? We'd have to put the history of cultural preservation into the 30% bad category. Beyond the obvious tragedy of the Cultural Revolution, the Chinese have yet to master the art of the international museum, municipal preservation or stewardship of national resources. They're the ones who ultimately control the pace of development and the use to which natural resources and historical sites are put. After all, if a 100 square meter Starbucks deep within the Forbidden City is a touch discordant with the building's history and aesthetic, so is a 100 square meter portrait of Mao and two enormous, illuminated, Communist-style propaganda slogans.

But such arguments won't make much difference for unlucky foreign coffee touts. These are rough days for MNCs in China. Having been designated fair game by the government, they're becoming the favorite whipping boy for everyone with a nationalist bone to pick. This is just great for people in my line of work, since it means we'll probably hit our targets this year. But there will be a few headaches for our clients on the way.

There's not really an easy way for Starbucks to respond to this. Short of showing in concrete terms what they are doing to support preservation of Chinese cultural artifacts, especially in the Forbidden City, the best thing they can do is probably to be gracious and sensitive --as they appear to have been-- and hope people's attention shifts elsewhere before too long, as it is prone to do. Their CEO has already responded to Mr. Rui. If I were them I would have a contingency plan for what to say if either their lease isn't renewed (or is terminated) or they decide it makes more sense for them to pull out of the Forbidden City.

If they were to leave the Forbidden City under a cloud, that would be a shame. The Forbidden City is aggressively marketed to foreign tourists and can take the better part of a day to wander through. Most of it is outdoors. It's brutally cold in winter and brutally hot in summer. A few well thought-out concessions go a long way to making a day inside the walls pleasant rather than gruelling. Not all foreign visitors will want Chinese food and green tea. That's the reality of international tourism. The Chinese, who are legendary for wanting the comforts of home when they travel as tourists, should be the first to appreciate that.

But why worry about all of that when there are cheap points to be scored?

See also ESWN.