A Shanghai Volkswagen public relations representative told the Metro Express they had no right to revoke the ads, which is an ad agent's responsibility.

The case came after ads for Nippon and Toyota drew ire from Chinese people in 2004.

The Nippon ads featured a Chinese pavilion with two pillars, each with a dragon wound around it. The left pillar looks grey and the dragon clings to it. The other dragon falls off the pillar painted by Nippon supposedly because the glossy Nippon paint made it slip.

The Toyota ads showed one stone lion saluting and another lion kowtowing to a Prado, with the slogan: "You have to respect Prado." In Putonghua, or standard Chinese, Prado is translated as Ba Dao, which means "high handed" or "supremacy."

Some critics connected the image to the lion statues on the Lugou Bridge in a suburb of Beijing through which Japanese troops launched their Chinese invasion on July 7, 1937.

Toyota eventually stopped publication of these two advertisements.