A 2016 report by the Sankei Shimbun documents how Chinese state media redirected public anger after the South China Sea arbitration ruling, targeting unrelated U.S. companies such as KFC, McDonald’s, and Ford. The episode reveals a continuity of state-led agitation rooted in Cultural Revolution–era practices.

2016-09-11
I have stated that in today’s Japan it is the Sankei Shimbun that reports facts.
What follows is an article that proves my argument one hundred percent.
Even in this short piece, there are several facts that I learned for the first time, and people around the world will learn them as well.

“The Mastermind Is the United States.”
Blocking Entry to Stores.

“Down with U.S. imperialism.”
On the afternoon of July 17.
About sixty men and women gathered in front of a Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet in Tangshan, Hebei Province, northern China, chanting slogans.

They held banners reading, “Eating American products is an insult to the faces of our ancestors.”
They blocked those attempting to enter the store and lectured them, asking, “Are you still Chinese.”

“There was fear that violence could occur at any moment.”
A store official said so.

The trigger for the protest was an arbitration ruling issued in mid-July by a tribunal in The Hague concerning territorial claims in the South China Sea.
The Philippines’ claims were largely upheld, amounting in effect to a comprehensive defeat for China.

A participant in the protest, a white-taxi driver, said by phone that he heard on the radio that their territory had been taken away.
He said he was furious.

He declared that obstructing KFC’s business was an act of patriotism.

The protests spread to U.S.-affiliated companies such as McDonald’s and exclusive dealerships of the American automaker Ford.

Rather than targeting the Philippines, unrelated U.S. companies were chosen because China’s state-controlled media launched an anti-U.S. campaign claiming that the United States was the mastermind behind the ruling and thereby channeled public anger.

“People of the world, unite to defeat the American aggressors and all their lackeys.”
This line from a statement issued by Mao Zedong on May 20, 1970, during the Cultural Revolution, was posted online after the arbitration ruling.

The original statement criticized U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War.

Red Guards who supported the Cultural Revolution, whipped up by official propaganda, carried out numerous attacks targeting foreigners and foreign-related facilities.

The most famous incident occurred in August 1967, when amid Sino-British tensions in Hong Kong, then a British colony, around ten thousand people stormed the British mission in Beijing, set it on fire, and assaulted British diplomats.

According to veteran Chinese Communist Party officials, harassment of foreign diplomats was commonplace, and regarding the Beijing incident, the People’s Daily published articles defending the Red Guards as acting out of righteous indignation.

Authorities once named streets lined with foreign embassies Anti-Imperialism Road.
They named the street in front of the Soviet embassy Anti-Revisionism Road.

To be continued.