Half a million Chinese internet users have rushed to agree with Rui Chenggang, who sparked the controversy with his blog Why Starbucks needs to get out of the Forbidden City, posted on January 12.

Mr Rui wrote that a Starbucks was obscenely out of place amid the 178-acre (71-hectare) complex of throne rooms, pavilions and gardens that was home to 24 emperors before the end of imperial rule in 1911.

“This is not globalisation but an erosion of Chinese culture,” said Mr Rui, who is an anchorman on CCTV9, an Englishlanguage state television channel. Now the cultural mandarins of China are considering closing the coffee shop.

Most comments agreed with Mr Rui’s view that a foreign café was inappropriate inside a 15th-century building that is a symbol of Chinese civilisation. Some attacked its presence as a disgrace, while others criticised the Palace Museum, which administers the Forbidden City, as a “slave of money”. At first the museum defended the coffee shop, saying that it had done no damage and blended in well with its surroundings. “We allowed it because we wanted to have a more international service available,” it said.

There were nearly nine million visitors to the sprawling palace last year, including 1.6 million foreigners. Yesterday, however, the Palace Museum appeared ready to bow to online opinion. Feng Nai’en, a museum spokesman, said: “The museum is working with Starbucks to find a solution by June in response to the protests. Whether or not Starbucks remains depends on the entire design plan that will be released in the first half of the year.”

The Forbidden City branch is low-key, occupying barely 20sq m. It is in a small corner of a giftshop that visitors come upon only if they seek it out, about halfway through their tour of imperial pavilions.

Many Chinese coffee shops and snack bars are also scattered around the Forbidden City and about a third have already been ordered to move out in a reorganisation of services.

Mr Rui told The Times that he was astonished at the response to his blog and at the power of the internet.

“I’m not attacking Starbucks. It’s not that. Personally, I welcome Starbucks to China and hope they will be successful but I just think it’s not proper to open a Starbucks in the Forbidden City. There should be a limit to protect our cultural traditions.”

The outlet opened in 2000 amid a media furore so severe that the museum authorities considered revoking its lease after two months.

Eden Woon, Starbucks vice-president for Greater China, said that the company has no plan to leave the site.

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