Host: welcome back, now hold the Grande Cappuccino, the coffee chain Starbucks has been forced to close its branch in Beijing's Forbidden City. The company said the decision to close had been congenial, but since the café opened 7 years ago, it's become the target of an increasingly widespread protest campaign, claiming it tramples over Chinese culture. Here's Harry Fawcett.

Harry: Starbucks was here by invitation, the authorities who run the Forbidden City – Beijing's enormous 15th-century imperial palace complex, encouraged the small, almost invisible franchise of the global chain to open in 2000, a sign of a modern outward looking China as it prepared for the Olympics in 2008. But within weeks, the shop was the target of vehement opposition; a blight, it was said, on the Chinese cultural treasure and world heritage site. Tourists too, seemed to find it at best a curiosity.

Tourist: it doesn't look like one, I don't see a sign, but large.

This is a forbidden green tea cappuccino, and it tastes like, er, ice grass, but you know plasmids so it is just delicious all the same.

Harry: the campaign to remove the café took off earlier this year when a blog by influential Chinese newsreader Rui Chenggang in which he called on Starbucks to pull out was featured heavily in the media. Thousands supported his stands and museum managers eventually bowed to the pressure.

Manager: we talked to Starbucks, and they've had some alternative plans, so they agreed to move out of the Forbidden City.

Harry: while some visitors today were disappointed to be denied their lattes, others were fully in favor.

Visitors: It's better, it's harmed the traditional culture.

Visitors: I think it doesn't belong into the Forbidden City. It's not…should not be as commercialized like that.

Harry: in fact, commercialization is hardly new here; the for-now locked-up café is already being made over into one of many souvenir shops on the site. Starbucks says it respects the decision and with more than 250 outlets already in China, its most important market after the U.S., the company can afford to be sanguine about this one bit of forbidden territory.

Host: Harry Fawcett, now tonight…