In the latest eruption of sensitivity over China’s communist heritage, a mysterious barbecue restaurant chain is under fire from the military over an advertising campaign launched two years ago that mocked a hero of the Korean war who was burnt to death in battle.
“The war has already begun,” declared the Peoples’ Liberation Army Daily yesterday, the army’s official mouthpiece. “At present, historical nihilism is spreading from the academic realm into online culture, and capricious ideas are warping historical thoughts and leading discourse astray,” read an editorial. “We must be on our guard.”
The barbecue chain’s 2013 ads still appear to touch a nerve among the military and Communist party loyalists, amid recent private ridicule of the myths and martyrs of a previous age.