Two Sides To China: Dior Guts Star Endorser Sharon Stone For Earthquake 'Karma' Remarks While Police Stop Dissident Journalist And Family Traveling To Sweden To Receive Golden Pen Award

Philip Stone May 30, 2008

Actress Sharon Stone gets paid really big bucks to promote Christian Dior, and in China the luxury goods firm has 68 outlets with 11 in Beijing. So when the Chinese went crazy on the Internet and elsewhere at her comments that their tragic earthquake could have been due to “karma”, Dior told Stone she had better say sorry publicly or she wouldn’t be representing the company any more. She apologized real fast.

But when Chinese officials on Wednesday barred the wife and daughter of a dissident journalist from traveling to Sweden to pick up the renowned Golden Pen award given annually to a journalist who exemplifies the quest for press freedom – they had already refused a passport for the winner himself -- there was no hue and cry, except from the World Association of Newspapers that is awarding the prize.

And thus two faces of China.

Stone’s story points out more than ever how celebrity endorsers need to weigh every word they utter. If her personal opinions don’t match the needs of her sponsors, does she talk or does she keep her mouth shut? By her actions she now is saying better to shut-up.

When you damn the Chinese and the multi-national company you are representing sees China as its major growth market, and there is so much criticism over what was said, then something has to give. And there was no doubt in this case it would be, one way or another, Stone. Dior Managing Director Antonio Belloni told it like it is at a luxury goods convention in Tokyo, “If there is a possibility of putting things in the right perspective, coming from the heart, I think that is the best thing to do. If she doesn’t agree, I think we have to acknowledge she doesn’t agree and detach us from her.”

So LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SA, the world’s largest luxury-goods maker that owns Dior, and whose other brands ranging from Hennessy brandy to Louis Vuitton leather goods, see China as a huge market quickly went into immediate damage control, distancing itself from the star unless she immediately relented. Already her pictures were being taken down from Dior counters and store windows  throughout China. This was enormous business that had been put at boycott risk because a Hollywood star happened to say what she really believed without taking the financial circumstances into account.

So Stone and her financial advisers had to make a decision very quickly -- stand on principal  or keep to a very lucrative contract. No wonder, in double-fast time, did she grovel, saying she was “deeply sorry for my inappropriate words and acts which have hurt the Chinese people’s feeling.”  She expressed “deepest condolences and sympathy to the victims of the quake” and she offered to go to the quake area to personally help. The foreign minister took note. “Artists should do more to help improve mutual understanding and friendship between countries,” he commented.

Just to make sure the Chinese understood how much Christian Dior regretted Stone’s original remarks, its Shanghai office issued a statement saying, “We don’t agree with her hasty, unreflecting remarks and we deeply regret them. Dior was one of the first international brands to enter China and has won affection and respect of the consuming public. We absolutely do not support any remark that hurts the Chinese people’s feelings.”

Stone, 50, a former Scientologist, recently converted to Tibetan Buddhism after being introduced to the Dalai Lama by actor Richard Gere. She apparently could still learn more from Gere who backs the Dalai Lama’s China line of no criticism for now and that he is praying for the victims. 

The brouhaha shows how powerful the Internet has become today. Stone’s comments on China, the Olympics and the quake in answer to a question from a Hong Kong TV reporter while she was on red carpet entering the Cannes Film Festival reverberated in text and video on the Web in no time. And, remember,  there are more Chinese plugged into the Web than any other nationality.

They did not take kindly to “I’ve been concerned about how we should deal with the Olympics because they are not being nice to Dalai Lama, who is a good friend of mine. And then all this earthquake and all this stuff happened, and I thought, is that karma – when you’re not nice that bad things happen to you.” She probably never even gave a thought to how such comments could affect a company she represents.  

Not only did Christian Dior watch in horror fearing all those nouveau riche Chinese would soon be shunning its products, but Hollywood was not enamored either. Steven Gaydops, executive editor of Variety, said, “To speak plain English, you don’t want to piss off several billion people” at a time when you have four films in production. Already Ng See-Yuen, founder of the UWE chain and chairman of the Federation of Hong Kong Filmmakers has said, according to The Beijing Times, that his chain won’t be showing Sharon Stone movies.

Stone, incidentally, is not the only Hollywood star whose personal thoughts about China conflict with endorsements, although sponsor reactions have been different. George Clooney, for instance, has actively criticized the Chinese, for not doing more to solve the humanitarian crisis in Darfur, considering its influence in Sudan, and he represents globally Omega, supplier of time-keeping and data handling services to the Beijing Olympics this August. 

Omega, owned by the Swiss Swatch Group, says it has talked with Clooney about Darfur and “we are proud to work with a person who has such ethical values,”  but “It is our policy not to get involved in politics because it would not serve the cause of sport.” But at least they haven’t dumped him and he hasn’t backtracked.

There is much global sympathy for China since that tragic quake and there is now a seemingly “hands-off” attitude to criticism – whereas the Dalai Lama was greeted in Europe with open arms a few weeks ago when Tibet and the Olympic torch protests were all the rage, he is now he is being shunned by politicians during a follow-up visit, the Chinese having made very clear diplomatically in the intervening time on how they think he should be treated, or else?

Earthquake or not, the Chinese seemingly are continuing their usual ways. The World Association of Newspapers (WAN)  says police confiscated the passports at Beijing Airport of the family of a Chinese journalist awarded the world’s most prestigious press freedom award, the Golden Pen of Freedom. Wife and daughter were trying to fly to the WAN annual Congress being held next week in Gothenburg, Sweden.

Authorities had already refused a passport to award winner Li Changqing, a reporter and deputy news director of the Fuzhou Daily in Fujan Province who had been imprisoned for three years for “fabricating and spreading false information” after he had disclosed an outbreak of dengue fever before health officials in his hometown had alerted the public. Chinese media executives who in the past have attended WAN meetings in decent numbers are this year boycotting on government orders, according to WAN.

So it all points up that what people all around the world were complaining about before the earthquake is still going on during the quake’s aftermath. There is much world sympathy for the Chinese people, but government restrictions continue for those who report what the government doesn’t want reported. WAN says that China has more than 30 journalists and 50 cyber reporters imprisoned and it calls China “the world‘s largest jailer of journalists”.

The Chinese have been remarkable in recent weeks in demonstrating the best defense is a good offense – rallying its students to protest around the world against news reports it didn’t like, getting the Internet really steaming hot with nationalism as the Olympic torch ran into trouble with Tibet demonstrators, and now with the Sharon Stone affair.

The quake has seemingly put an end to the rampaging criticism – it’s not considered fair sport to hit people when they are down –- but the world is going to have to ask itself shortly whether such a horrible catastrophe that continues to this day with after-shocks and the long-term anguish for those who have lost their only child, means an end of criticizing such a political system that seemed to offer much in order to host the Olympics but stands accused of delivering far less.

When does the global mourning end? Before or after the Olympics? One milestone -- the Olympic torch is scheduled to arrive in Tibet in two weeks.