Why are Chinese nationalists turning on Chinese brands?

EXCITABLE CHINESE netizens have long inveighed against foreign brands’ perceived insults of Chinese culture. Nike, an American shoemaker, was once attacked for depicting a man beating a dragon in a game of basketball. Marriott, an American hotel chain, was hit with an online campaign after it listed Taiwan and Tibet as countries. Dolce & Gabbana, an Italian fashion label, got an earful in 2018 over an ad that showed a Chinese model clumsily eating Italian food with chopsticks.Now China’s online nationalists are taking aim at a new target. In the past two weeks they have besieged Nongfu, a bottler of spring water whose founder, Zhong Shanshan, is China’s richest man. Its sin? Typography. The Chinese character for tea used on Nongfu’s new beverage includes four brushstrokes resembling plus signs. To the online nationalists, the stylisation resembles the Yasukuni shrine in Tokyo, where Japanese generals who committed war crimes in China are commemorated.