Marriott Freezes Its Social Media Globally, And Makes Grovelling Apology To China, All For A Drop-Down Menu And Liking A Tweet
from the rectification-of-names dept
As Techdirt readers are well aware, China is rapidly growing more powerful, both economically and politically. Its economic rise has been clear enough for some time, not least in its technological prowess. Its political might, however, has only recently become more evident, as it begins to assert itself in various ways around the world. China's sense of its own power, and its increasing impatience with anyone that dares to go against it, is nicely illustrated in a recent incident. It concerns a drop-down menu and a like on a tweet, both belonging to the "global lodging company" Marriott International, which issued the following corporate statement a few days ago:
Marriott International respects and supports the sovereignty and territorial integrity of China. Unfortunately, twice this week, we had incidents that suggested the opposite: First, by incorrectly labelling certain regions within China, including Tibet, as countries in a drop-down menu on a survey we sent out to our loyalty members; and second, in the careless "like" by an associate of a tweet that incorrectly suggested our support of this position [that Tibet is a country in its own right]. Nothing could be further from the truth: we don't support anyone who subverts the sovereignty and territorial integrity of China and we do not intend in any way to encourage or incite any such people or groups. We recognize the severity of the situation and sincerely apologize.
In addition to this grovelling apology, Marriott publicly punished itself by shutting down large chunks of its digital activities, as China Daily, the English-language news organ of the Chinese government, reported:
After identifying its errors, the company has taken the survey offline, "unliked" the post, shut down its six websites and apps in Chinese, and put a freeze on its social media across the world. The CEO has volunteered to issue an apology.
It has also terminated the contract with the third-party vendor that built the survey, a Canadian company that Marriott has been working with for a long time, and with the US-based employee who "liked" the tweet.
It's not clear whether Marriott was ordered directly to take these actions, or decided to carry them out voluntarily. Either way, it's striking that Marriott is apologizing so abjectly for actions taken in the US and Canada -- not in China -- and even shut down its social media activity globally, for a while. That's a striking demonstration of China's reach today: no matter where something happens, if the Chinese authorities don't like it, they now expect businesses that want to work in China to come up with a "rectification plan" for these slips, just as Marriott has done, according to China Daily. That's probably a reference to a concept in Confucian philosophy, the "rectification of names", which means making words correspond to reality -- in this case, the policies of the Chinese government. An article in Business Insider notes that other multinationals have received loud and clear the message China wishes to send by its humiliation of Marriott:
A number of international companies, including Zara, Marriott, Qantas, and Delta Air Lines, have apologized to China in the last week for listing Taiwan and Hong Kong as "countries" on their websites.
Zara, Marriott and Delta Air Lines all deleted references to these regions as countries and were publicly reprimanded by Chinese authorities, while Qantas discovered and fixed the same type of "error" during a routine review of its website.
Expect much more of this kind of thing, as a newly-confident, and increasingly arrogant, China starts to swing its weight around. It will doubtless seize on even the most trivial "hurt", real or perceived, as a pretext for humbling Western companies and thus, implicitly, their governments -- just as they did to China once upon a time.
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Filed Under: china, free speech, social media
Companies: marriott
Reader Comments
The First Word
“Imagine in the U.S...
If someone (mistakenly or intentionally) labeled Texas a separate country, we'd all just chuckle and get on with our daily lives.Subscribe: RSS
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第一篇文章
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Imagine in the U.S...
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Re:
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Re: Imagine in the U.S...
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Re: Imagine in the U.S...
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A new internet trope
Now known as a "Self-Streisand". (Sorry Mike)
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Re: 第一篇文章
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Re: Re: Imagine in the U.S...
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Re:
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Re: A new internet trope
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This is the price of doing business with other nations. US companies cannot resist the temptation of reaching billions of potential new customers.
If a company has to bow and kiss the feet when delivering apologies, I seriously doubt this action is worse than losing those potential profits.
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Re: Re: Imagine in the U.S...
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Re: Re: Re: Imagine in the U.S...
Or "America" for that matter. The term for the New World - starting with modern-day South America - for about 270 years before some revolutionaries in the British colonies adopted it and claimed to represent all of it.
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Re: Re: 第一篇文章
Yes; that's pretty much what's going on -- except the Chinese leadership appears to actually have a clue.
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Taiwan
How is it not a "Country"?
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Re: Taiwan
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India banned Windows 95 when it was discovered that the time zone map had a few pixels of the disputed Kashmir region allocated to Pakistan.
The ban was lifted when Microsoft produced an Indian version with the map removed altogether.... and promised that future versions for the rest of the world would have it removed too.
Big markets bring power.
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Country Or Not ...
... it seems it matters ...
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Silver Lining
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Remember when US companies had a spine?
I have such a difficult time respecting these US companies that are so easily cowed and so meekly lower themselves to tonguing the sphincters of the leadership of other nations all in the name of chasing yet more profit. I know my dollar won't be missed by them when I am unable to bring myself to support their corporations, but it really is so very sad to watch. Good luck, Marriott, I'll just find another place to crash for the night.
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Re: Taiwan
You know it's a country. I know it's a country. Marriott knows it's a country. Except China's too used to getting it's One China way or else.
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Re: we'd all just chuckle and get on with our daily lives.
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Re: so meekly lower themselves to tonguing the sphincters of the leadership of other nations all in the name of chasing yet more profit
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Re: Re: Re: Imagine in the U.S...
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Re: Taiwan
The situation depends on whose viewpoint you adopt.
According to the Taipei government, there is only one China. It is called the "Republic of China", and encompasses all of China, including both the mainland and the island of Taiwan. The capital is Taipei.
According to the Beijing government, there is only one China. It is called the "People's Republic of China", and encompasses all of China, including both the mainland and the island of Taiwan. The capital is Beijing.
Third parties may have third views.
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Re: Taiwan
As part of this, China has cut off diplomatic relations with any country which recognizes Taiwan as a sovereign entity. At the moment, I believe there are only 19 nations which still do so (none of much international significance).
So as far as it being a "country," it really depends on your definition. It is legally acknowledged as a country by itself, and 19 other countries. It has a government and control over part of the territory it claims (Taiwan, but not mainland China). Further, the US and EU (along with several others) have informal diplomatic relations with it (which are part of the reason China has left it alone).That's the good news.
But every other country in the world (including the US, EU, China and Russia which are the world powers at the moment) do not consider it a country. It's the largest "country" not in the UN because it can't get into the UN. Almost nobody in the UN acknowledges that they're a country.
But this is all international politics. The Marriot is a US based company. The US says Taiwan is not a country. Nearly all of their business is in countries which say Taiwan is not a country. Ergo, if prompted they'll say Taiwan is not a country. It's what their home country says, it's what their business partners say, it's what they say.
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Re: Remember when US companies had a spine?
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Re: Re: Taiwan
And that encapsulates the problem with politics, politicians wish to rule, and do not wish to co-operate. It is an attitude that leads to Empire, and show up in treaty negotiations, where the objective is to rule, rather than find a basis for cooperation; i.e. the US position on IP.
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(Snark aside, and I would really love if someone has an example of this: in these sort of drop down menus, is Puerto Rico listed as a separate country?)
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Imagine in the U.S...
They called their new federation "the united states of America", i.e., a federation made by uniting American nations together into one polity.
It's only later on that the forces of linguistic evolution and the inexorable tendency towards verbal shorthand led people to abbreviate this name as "America", rather than as e.g. "the United States"; the latter is in fact still used, but the former has the insurmountable advantage of being shorter, both in letter count and in syllable count.
I agree that the result is an unfortunate over-broad claim of what might be called "name territory", but I don't think anyone did it intentionally; I think it's just a natural development from an unobjectionable name which people choose without realizing what would develop from it.
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Re: Re: Re: Taiwan
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Learned from the best, haven't they?
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Re: Imagine in the U.S...
However, I don't see the US getting upset at a Chinese hotel chain for mis-labeling Puerto Rico. Then again, the US doesn't have the political history as China and Tibet or China and Taiwan.
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Re: How should it be listed on a website drop-down list?
Not the only peculiarity of the US territories...
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America: SOLD
I'm givin her all she's got Captain. We can't bend over any harder.
I guess when China annexes Taiwan and Japan next year, we'll just say "This is fine" (in Mandarin Chinese, of course).
God bless the people of China, but their Communistic government is completely off the rails.
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