BEIJING // A Chinese detergent maker has apologised for an advertisement which shows a black man stuffed into a washing machine and transformed into a fair-skinned Asian, only one day after dismissing critics as too sensitive.
The commercial by the Shanghai Leishang Cosmetics company provoked an uproar on US news websites, with commentators citing it as an example of racist attitudes towards black people in China.
The advertisement for Qiaobi laundry detergent drops shows a black man entering a room and trying to flirt with an Asian woman.
He is carrying a pail of paint, wears dirty clothes and has a soiled face. She feeds him a detergent drop and stuffs his body into a top-loading washer. When the cycle completes, a fair-skinned Asian man in a clean white T-shirt emerges to the delight of the woman.
“For the harm caused to the African people because of the spread of the advert and the over-amplification by the media, we express our apology,” the company said on its official social media account.
“We sincerely hope the public and the media will not over-read it,” it said.
The advertisement, which first appeared on Chinese social media in March, has been viewed more than seven million times on YouTube in the past three days.
After drawing protests this week following media reports, the firm said on Saturday it had stopped airing the advertisement and deleted links to it.
“We express regret that the ad has caused a controversy, but we will not shun responsibility for controversial content,” the company said.
A spokesman for the Leishang cosmetics company had told China’s Global Times that the issue of racial discrimination never came up during the production of the video.
“We meant nothing but to promote the product, and we had never thought about the issue of racism,” he said.
“The foreign media might be too sensitive about the ad,” he added.
The spokesman said a shorter version was broadcast in China, which did not feature the black actor, and he had no idea how the full-length clip ended up online.
The advertisement attracted little attention in China, which has historically experienced almost no settlement by people of African descent.
Traditional attitudes prizing white skin in women have contributed to bias against dark-skinned people.
The ad has rekindled discussions on racial discrimination in China, where prejudices against blacks are likely to be dismissed.
* Agence France-Presse and Associated Press
