Starbuck's Forbidden City

I am told it is closed now due to some sort of outrage, but this miss if you blink Starbuck's, located in the Forbidden City, seemed to cause quite the stir over globalization. Not to sound too cold and callous, but from having been there, it is acceptable for tourists to be besieged while inside the Forbidden City to go to "Student Art Exhibits" wherein one can purchase any number of scroll paintings duplicated by the masses for the masses, but one coffee joint that doesn't send people out trying to lure customers and has forgone any lit signs, opting for the name painted on the windows as its demarcation. If there were other signs inside the City pointing to its location, they too were subtle enough that I don't recall them, so I don't really know what the fuss was about. China didn't have a coffee culture, and without Starbuck's would likely still not have one. The location, actually split with a tchotchke shop, probably still serves coffee of some sort, as well as the postcards and other mementos one can pick up in places like this. The only real question now is whether it is an improvement. One thing people forget about restaurant chains is that many of them source locally where they can, and many are owned by locals who have purchased franchise rights. There are likely still evils about them, but the businesses employ locals and pay local taxes. Personally, I don't think this particular store deserved the vilification it received for its location. I haven't heard anywhere near the chatter about the location in the Louvre that I heard about this location, and there is a cafe culture in France and the Starbuck's experience is nothing like it.