As the Chagee milk tea brand, originating from China, was preparing for the opening of its first store in Vietnam, a serious incident occurred, causing a wave of outrage in the online community. Specifically, this brand was involved in a scandal related to the illegal display of the "cow tongue line" on its app and website, seriously violating Vietnam's territorial sovereignty.
The incident originated from a post on the official fanpage of Chagee Vietnam. This post included a link to the brand's application, and when users accessed the application, they discovered an image of China's illegal "cow tongue line" appearing on the map. This action immediately caused great outrage in the Vietnamese online community, because the "cow tongue line" is an illegal sovereignty claim of China in the East Sea, which has been strongly opposed by the international community and Vietnam.
Chagee is considered the "giant" of Chinese milk tea.
Chagee's display of the "cow tongue line" on its application has been considered a serious violation of Vietnam's territorial sovereignty, and has caused a strong boycott wave from Vietnamese consumers. Many users have spoken out demanding that Chagee provide a clear explanation and remove the illegal "cow tongue line" image from its application. This incident has caused a major media crisis for Chagee, and raised big questions about the future of this brand in the Vietnamese market.
The original post read: "Vietnam, are you ready to join the challenge with Chagee? Join the word search and name guessing game now. Find and enter the name of a Chagee tea product in the alphabet for a chance to win a cup of Chagee fresh milk tea. Download the Chagee app and join here...".
The image of the cow tongue line is used in the application of this Chinese milk tea company.
The outrage of the Vietnamese online community did not stop at the initial posts. A series of other posts on the official fanpage of Chagee Vietnam also quickly received thousands of "upvotes" and countless comments expressing indignation and anger at the milk tea company's use of a map with the illegal "cow tongue line".
In the face of a strong boycott and rising anger from the Vietnamese online community, the milk tea company Chagee has "quietly" removed its application from the Google Play Store and App Store online application stores. The application access link that Chagee Vietnam previously advertised is also no longer active, making it inaccessible to users.
Chagee's app also no longer shows the installation option for the Vietnam region. When users try to access it, the platforms say "The app is currently not available in your region." This suggests that Chagee has taken steps to prevent Vietnamese users from downloading its app.
Floor plan of the newly built milk tea shop
However, the incident did not stop there. While the Chagee application in Vietnam has been removed, the Chagee HK (Hong Kong) application continues to display the map with the illegal "nine-dash line". In addition, the official website of Chagee also contains a map with the nine-dash line, showing that the violation still exists on the brand's other platforms.
Also on the morning of March 18, the Chagee signboard at the construction site at the corner of Nguyen Thiep - Dong Khoi intersection, District 1, Ho Chi Minh City was removed and replaced with a blue tarpaulin. This is the first store of this brand opened in Vietnam. Currently, inside this construction site, construction is still continuing but the completion time has not been disclosed. The move to remove the Chagee signboard came after this milk tea brand was called for a boycott by many Vietnamese consumers because the Chagee app displayed a map with an image of the illegal "cow tongue line".
Online community calls for boycott of milk tea brand
Chagee, known in Chinese as Bawang Teaji, is a high-end milk tea chain founded in 2017 in Shanghai by founder Zhang Junjie. As of 2024, the chain has expanded to more than 5,000 stores across East Asia.
Currently, Vietnam does not have an official store, but according to some connoisseurs, each cup is usually sold for 95,000-100,000 VND/cup, depending on the flavor. Consumers often drink flavors such as jasmine green milk tea, Tieguanyin, white peach oolong, rose, etc.
Before Chagee, many brands were also discovered to have used map images containing the "cow tongue line" and faced boycotts from the community. Recently, a similar controversy also broke out when an image suspected to be the "nine-dash line" appeared on the Baby Three doll product. Previously, the game "Boba Tea DIY Making Milk Tea" on the Google Play app store was discovered to have an illegal nine-dash line in the app's map.
