The Dalai Lama Dilemma and Other China Pitfalls Brands Should Know

HONG KONG — May 25th at the amfAR Cannes gala was meant to be a night of revelry and high spirits all in the name of a good cause. But the charity fund-raiser, a fixture during the week-long film festival, became inadvertently drawn into a dose of heated Chinese geopolitics. An announcement two days before the event that two auction lots related to the 14th Dalai Lama, Tibetan Buddhism’s spiritual leader, were to be included led to Chinese celebrities backing out of the event. Model Ming Xi had excitedly been posting on social media in anticipation of the night, encouraging her fans to support amfAR’s fight against HIV, but in a since-deleted Weibo post, she revealed she would no longer attend due to “special circumstances.” According to Jing Daily, the “Weibo post also showed emoticons of a heart, the Chinese national flag, and a flexed arm.” Liu Wen and actress Fan Bingbing were reportedly also on the guest list but pulled out too. Under amfAR’s Instagram post, comments quickly grew political and ugly. Several users left Chinese-language posts disparaging the HIV charity for having anything to do with the Dalai Lama. Despite the Dalai Lama’s retirement from politics, he remains a persona non grata in China,

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