Here is an ad by a Chinese detergent company. (All the trigger warnings for mega-racism.) 

Let’s see, we’ve got the stereotype of the predatory/rapey black male, a working class black man targeting a professional class non-black woman, violence against a black man played for laughs, the equivalence of blackness with dirt, and the (SPOILER ALERT) turning of a dark-skinned man into a light-skinned man, depicted as infinitely more attractive,.l via laundry magic. What did I miss?

Many Chinese web commenters immediately called out the ad as racist. According to the web site Quartz, one noted: “This is undoubtedly racial discrimination. Those who can get on YouTube [blocked in China], should denounce the ad and make clear that it is the producers of this video who are racist, not the majority of Chinese.” Quartz points out studies, anecdotes and stats showing that racial attitudes toward black people in China are becoming much more positive. (Of course, not everyone’s there. “There’s no reason to apologize,” said another commenter. “Blacks aren’t part of the 56 minority groups in China, so how could it be considered offensive?” Right.)

The apology (sent to media outlets and headlined “China’s Qiaobi advertisement is accused of ethnic discrimination, incites controversy on YouTube”) came reasonably quickly, but was terrible.

[W]e verified that the ad has been reported on or circulated by American media outlets including the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and CNN; the UK’s BBC; France’s AFP, and other media outlets. It has attracted public attention in the US, the UK, and elsewhere. We’d like to express that we have properly managed this situation and would like to add the following:

1. We have no intentions to discriminate against people of color… Ethnic discrimination is something we strongly reject and condemn.
2. We express regret over the controversy the ad has created and do not intend to shirk responsibility. We have already stopped the ad’s circulation and have canceled several online streaming links. We hope that internet users and the media will cease sharing the video.
3. The advertisement and the surrounding controversy have hurt people of African descent. We express our apologies, and also sincerely hope internet users and media won’t overanalyze the situation.
4. Qiaobi is a domestic Chinese brand of cleaning products. We hope that domestic brands can continue to thrive and go global.

OK, issues in this press release in order of appearance, not in order of horribleness:

Instead of leading with an apology, it starts by listing media outlets outside China that picked up the story. Weirdly accusatory. Then “we have properly managed this situation.” Uh, maybe instead of informing us that you rock, tell us what you did and let us decide? Saying you reject discrimination is fascinating when the premise of the ad is founded in discrimination. You don’t get to “express regret over the controversy.” You express regret over WHAT YOU DID. Not over how others responded. Stopping the promotion of the ad is good, but telling people to stop sharing the video is like telling people to put a genie back in a laundry bottle. Doesn’t work, not your place. You made the ad and the controversy, and you have to deal with the dissemination and anger. Half a point for saying, baldly, “the advertisement and the surrounding controversy have hurt people of African descent.” At least here they acknowledge that the ad itself caused pain. But adding “and the surrounding controversy” mitigates that statement: Again, you’re saying, “It’s not OUR fault, it’s the fault of those who are complaining.” NO. And telling people not to “overanalyze the situation”? Oh jeez, again with the no. See also “lighten up,” “it was just an ad,” “don’t take everything so seriously,” “everyone’s so PC now,” etc. (Wait, I just got that “lighten up” is a particularly ironic response to THIS PARTICULAR AD.) And finally, the reminder the Quiaobi is a “domestic Chinese brand.” In other words, it’s for us, not you. We know our audience and we know what we’re doing. Stop being busybodies, international press and Internet users. But then the conclusion, “we hope that domestic brands can continue to thrive and go global,” contradicts the sentence before it. If it’s just for the Chinese, how do you propose going global? I think this is a threat to Chinese people disseminating the ad [which took effort, what with YouTube being blocked in China] and complaining about it: Do you want our economy to suffer because you’re airing our dirty laundry [sic]?

Also, as Quartz notes, this is a blatant rip-off of an Italian detergent commercial with a very different punchline.

This is problematic too — positive stereotypes are still stereotypes, still dehumanizing. But seeing this ad as the genesis for the Chinese ad makes the latter even more offensive.