Chagee was accused of de-Sinicization after it used the phrase "Lunar New year" in its social media post. The company later published an article on its WeChat account titled "Celebrating the first Intangible Heritage Spring Festival Worldwide, Happy Chinese New Year!" where it apologised to its fans for its mistakes.

Changee starts by setting the preface that the sentiments among the chinese community globally in celebrating the Spring Festival is the same. But it explains that because their company's media team is made up of partners from ten different countries, it resulted in a mistake where the translation was not properly synchronised across the different countries.

It also promised fans that it will continue to strengthen the management and communication of international accounts to ensure accuracy in their marketing materials.

The company also acknowledged the need to continuously learn and improve, and it thanked fans for rightfully pointing out their mistakes. Critics are criticizing that by using the phrase Lunar New Year, it undermines the Chinese identity.

Similar debates on Chinese social media

Apparently, there is a similar debate among the Chinese community on Chinese social media, XiaoHongShu. One user started the discussion, saying

"Chinese New Year, not Lunar New Year. I encourage everyone to not replace the name CNY with Lunar New Year."

The user gave three reasons to support his argument. First he explained, CNY is not New Year's Day in Lunar Calendar. The Chinese calendar is actually a lunisolar calendar, and traditional holidays are determined by this instead of the lunar calendar. Hence the two calendars are different.

Secondly, calling it CNY is not being exclusive.

"Many people celebrate Christmas without being Christian even if the name of that holiday is religious. Likewise, calling it CNY is not in any way exclusive to the others who celebrate it."

Lastly, they add that removing Chinese can be disrespectful. The user expressed that by taking the word Chinese with Lunar diminished its cultural significance.

"The holidays and practices, such as the Chinese Zodiac, eating dumplings and decoration sin red, originate from China, so calling it CNY is a respect to its cultural roots."

But many other users said that they didn't know that replacing the world Chinese New Year with Lunar New Year was to an erasure of the influence the Chinese have on the holiday.

There were others who also argued that the removal of "Chinese" also serves to promote Sinophobia. Netizens later thanked the XiaoHongShu users for educating them on the right terms of use and promised to use CNY going forward.