Starbucks Korea faces boycott calls over ‘Tank Day’ event
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A government official said refraining from visiting Starbucks would be the right move out of respect for public sentiment.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Starbucks faced boycott calls in South Korea on May 20 after a promotional event at the coffee chain drew sharp condemnation from President Lee Jae Myung for appearing to use a deeply symbolic 1980s massacre to sell tumblers.
Starbucks Korea’s “Tank Day” campaign offered discounts on the company’s large-capacity “Tank” tumbler series.
But its launch on May 18 coincided with the anniversary of the Gwangju uprising on May 18, 1980, when South Korea’s then-military junta deployed soldiers in tanks to crush a protest in the southern city, killing hundreds.
The backlash was swift. The company’s local chief executive officer was fired, and US-based Starbucks issued a statement calling the campaign “unacceptable”, but the response failed to quell outrage and the ruling Democratic Party – the leadership of which includes numerous former student pro-democracy activists – called for a boycott.
Party leader Jung Chung-rae told candidates and volunteers not to frequent the coffee chain while on the campaign trail ahead of local elections in June. Videos of party members throwing Starbucks cups on the ground and vowing to join the boycott circulated widely on social media.
“Whenever the anniversary of the movement comes around, many people suffer psychological distress and trauma,” Mr Jung said at a televised meeting with senior party members.
“Refraining from visiting Starbucks would be the right move out of respect for public sentiment.”
The promotion also sparked a fierce rebuke from the country’s top leadership, with President Lee Jae Myung saying on X it was the “inhumane, reckless behaviour of low-class merchants”, and the country’s justice minister calling it “an immoral atrocity” in a Facebook post on May 20.
Shares of Shinsegae’s supermarket chain E-Mart, which owns a 67.5 per cent stake in Starbucks Korea operationally known as SCK Company, fell as much as 5.7 per cent in early trading in Seoul. Parent company Shinsegae also dropped 4.7 per cent. BLOOMBERG
