Leica Camera AG of Germany is the latest foreign company to spark a backlash in China over marketing material seen as offending local sensibilities, this time for a video that re-creates scenes seemingly from China's 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown.
The reaction was swift: After appearing on various websites Thursday, by Friday morning China time the word Leica in English or Mandarin had been banned from the microblogging platform Weibo for "violating laws, regulations or the Weibo community guidelines." Some Weibo commenters lambasted the company, while others left candle emojis — a common symbol of remembrance of victims of Tiananmen Square, an incident Beijing has scrubbed from the country's official history.
The five-minute video, titled "The Hunt," celebrates Western photographers documenting conflicts in foreign countries with their Leica cameras, even as they're threatened with personal harm. While the commercial jumps between different scenarios, its main thread follows a photographer who captured the iconic image, known as "Tank Man," of a lone Chinese protester standing in front of a line of army tanks.
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