Can Starbucks coffee improve China-US ties? Cui Tiankai urges Howard Schultz to try

In talks in Shanghai, former ambassador Cui says the company can contribute to understanding between the two countries

Shanghai Communist Party chief Chen Jining also says the coffee chain can encourage more American young people to come to China

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Cui Tiankai, former Chinese ambassador to the US, meets former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz in Shanghai on Friday. Photo: Twitter/ ShanghaiEye

Published: 5:00pm, 23 Mar 2024Updated: 3:53pm, 25 Mar 2024

Corrected [3:48pm, 25 Mar, 2024]

[3:48pm, 25 Mar, 2024]
An earlier version of this story incorrectly reported that former Starbucks chief executive Howard Schultz was in China to attend the China Development Forum. The number of Starbucks stores and Chinese cities where the chain has a presence has also been amended.

A former Chinese envoy to the United States urged US coffee chain Starbucks to promote exchanges between the two countries, saying the company could “play a positive role in advancing [bilateral ties]”.

Cui Tiankai, Beijing’s longest-serving ambassador to Washington, made the call in a meeting with former Starbucks chief executive Howard Schultz at the Starbucks Reserve Roastery in Shanghai’s Jingan district on Friday.

“We encourage Starbucks to make more contributions to promoting mutual understanding between China and the United States and their peoples,” Cui said, adding that China offered a “vast market” to the chain.

Cui stressed that promoting people-to-people exchanges between the two countries was crucial to the healthy, stable and sustainable development of bilateral ties.

Schultz said the two countries had “more commonalities than differences”, and that China’s achievements in socioeconomic development and in improving its people’s livelihoods were “heartening”.

He and Cui met previously during Cui’s eight-year stint in the United States, which ended in 2021.