To have an inappropriate, poorly worded memo leaked to the world is a human resources nightmare. The airing of a company’s dirty laundry has consequences, and now Vitasoy has both the author and leaker of the memo to thank for the public relations and business disaster that it has become. Its shares plummeted 12 per cent , losing HK$3.7 billion (US$475 million) last Monday. The plunge occurred after the emergence of an internal company memo offering condolences to the family of the colleague who stabbed a Hong Kong policeman before killing himself on one of the city’s busiest streets on July 1, an attack authorities have called a lone-wolf terrorist attack . The memo, which quickly went viral, prompted mainland Chinese social media users to call for a boycott of Vitasoy. With two-thirds of its revenue coming from mainland China , it had a major business impact. It is now usual practice for actors that have business ties with the outrage-causing company of the day to cut ties preemptively. Two have apparently done so with Vitasoy out of self-preservation. Having the mainland paper Global Times jump in certainly did not help Vitasoy one bit. In an editorial, editor-in-chief Hu Xijin wrote that this sort of public shaming and boycott is encouraged and deemed it the patriotic thing to do. The court of public opinion is in full session – “Whoever does not a have firm stance or engages in opportunism will pay a price”, the editorial read. Welcome to cancel culture with Chinese characteristics. For all of China’s efforts to roll back Westernisation , cancel culture is something mainland Chinese have embraced and taken to a whole new level. It is the power of being the home of 1.4 billion people, and it is used as a rallying point for causes and retaliatory campaigns, such as that against the Xinjiang cotton ban . Chinese consumers showed themselves throwing away their branded possessions in protest on social media, and boycotted companies that banned Xinjiang cotton. Former US president Barack Obama weighed into the cancel culture debate in 2019. He called it “not activism” and “if all you’re doing is casting stones, you’re probably not going to get that far”. Cancel culture leaves little room for conflict resolution. There is no room for dialogue and works against any sort of reconciliation. It might be effective as an attack, but it rarely amounts to positive transformation. The world rarely operates in such clear-cut, black-and-white ways. Vitasoy paid a hefty price, but what were the lessons learned? Have better crisis management? Have tighter control over who can put out memos? The Global Times editorial said: “The Vitasoy issue shows that Hong Kong society’s efforts alone are not enough. The mainland should support the positive reshaping of Hong Kong’s public opinion and social ecology.” But let’s not be distracted by the “Vitasoy issue” and ignore the underlying problems. While there is no good reason to praise or encourage the attacker and his despicable actions, we would have to acknowledge that all of it occurred against the backdrop of a tense, anti-government atmosphere and a strong undercurrent of anger in society. This sentiment manifested as the “mourning” of the attacker. People brought flowers to the site of the attack. A university student union council passed a resolution “lauding” the sacrifice of the man who carried out the attack and the “deep sadness” over his death. The university student union has since apologised and retracted the resolution . One bad decision has the potential of snowballing and blowing up to an incredible scale in today’s world, but outrage does not make the world a better place. Outrage does not cancel outrage. The stabber took cancel culture to the extreme. He tried to do away with a police officer and then proceeded to “cancel” himself. The deep wounds of our polarised society remain, with the angry defiance and passive aggression there for all to see. Alice Wu is a political consultant and a former associate director of the Asia Pacific Media Network at UCLA