A Chinese detergent commercial showing a black man stuffed into a washing machine and transformed into a fair-skinned Asian provoked outrage this week, but the company behind the clip says it is foreign critics who need to lighten up. The commercial for the “Qiaobi” brand — which has gone viral in the West — shows a black man whistling and winking at a young Chinese woman, who calls him over, puts a detergent packet into his mouth, and forces him headfirst into a washing machine. She sits on the lid while the man shrieks. Moments later an Asian man emerges in clean clothes, and the woman grins. “We meant nothing but to promote the product, and we had never thought about the issue of racism,” a spokesman for the Leishang cosmetics company, which produces the detergent, told China’s Global Times. “The foreign media might be too sensitive about the ad,” he added. The spokesman said a shorter version was broadcast in China, which did not feature the black actor, and he had no idea how the full-length clip ended up online. ‘Racist’ laundry detergent ad slammed for turning black man into fair-skinned Chinese after spin in the washer The advertisement has provoked an uproar on US news websites, which cited it as an example of racist attitudes towards black people in China. “This ad is blatantly racist... it’s also a reminder that attitudes over race and skin colour in China can be very bad,” said Vox.com But it has attracted little attention in its home country, with few comments on social media, and fewer than 2,000 views of the same ad on popular video-sharing site Youku. However, some mainland users of Facebook said they didn’t like the ad because it hinted that “Africans are dirty and inferior to Chinese”, with some mockingly asking why the washing product couldn’t simply turn the “black man into a white guy?” CNN reported that the ad had sparked an outcry in the southern city Guangzhou, which has at least 15,000 African residents. The local African community has complained of facing discrimination by local Chinese for years, but so far have not openly protested about it. Until recent years, China had seen virtually no immigration by people of African descent. But that has changed in recent years as China has risen to become Africa’s largest trading partner. Traditional attitudes favouring light skin in women have contributed to bias against dark-skinned people. Additional reporting by Minnie Chan