Another foreigner in China has become a “web celebrity” following “American French Fry Brother” and the Brazilian pickpocket stopper, but for a very wrong reason: netizens have been enraged by a video purportedly of a British man attempting to rape a Chinese girl outside a shopping mall in Beijing.

The incident, which reportedly occurred on Tuesday night, was first posted by @北京人不知道的北京事儿(Things happened in Beijing but Beijingnese do not know) on Sina Weibo, the most popular microblogging website in China on Wednesday. The poster urged “Brothers in Beijing” to bear in mind the face of the laowai, or foreigner, and “beat him once you see him!”

“Around 23:20 on May 8, 2012, a laowai was beaten up [by a Chinese man] for [attempting to] rape Chinese girl outside SOGO in Xuanwumen. ... Everyone, spread the post! Whoever sees the bustard, do remember to sms me,” it said.

Beijing police said they have detained the “drunk” British man, who was holding a tourist visa in China, “for investigation accordance to law”, in statement on their verified Weibo @平安北京.

“From police investigations, on 2012 May 8th around 11pm, a foreign national male began molesting a woman in public after drinking. When passersby saw, they stopped him and called the police. The police immediately rushed to the scene and arrested the man. Afterward, the police put him in a detainment room for him to sober up and [he] is currently being detained for investigation in accordance to law,” it said.

"Being drunk is not an excuse for committing crimes," netizen "Kaerbode” was cited as saying by the official Xinhua News Agency.

Oliver, a British male in Shanghai, agreed that being drunk should never be an excuse for committing rape, “a horrible, completely unjustifiable crime”.

“I’ve seen netizens’ reactions, calling the guy ‘white trash’ and saying this episode shows how foreigners don’t care about China and see Chinese women as easy. And of course, there are those who are saying that they are ashamed to be British and apologising,” he told morningwhistle.com.

“Internet users across the world often react in similar ways when these things happen, showing shame or being xenophobic.”

“I feel sorry for the girl and hope she is OK, but I wouldn’t say I’m ashamed to be British because of what happened, just like my [Chinese] wife shouldn’t need to be ashamed of being Chinese because of the actions of some Chinese person abroad. We are all people, we should be judged on our individual actions and not where we are from or our race.”

Here are more comments from Sina Weibo, where the incident is the No.2 trending topic with over 1 million posts.

@戴杰超: Salute to the brave citizen! Meanwhile, please stop complaining how badly our Chinese behave abroad! Look at this! How well-behaved is this British guy?
@潘穎宇: Worshipers of foreign things, be careful! The earth is really dangerous.
@荀荀婚礼电影-尐彬：How dare you [the British man] to commit such a crime in China? You are definitely hungry for a beating... Well done, the pure Beijing man!
@潶铯insect: It reminds me of the situation when the Eight-Nation Alliance [invaded China]. How dare foreigners are. China must be powerful.

But some netizens still held a critical view against Chinese people, questioning those who talked it too big and those onlookers at the scene.

@X松本秀人X: I have been wondering why such an incident that a laowai molested a girl could be elevated  to nationalist and nation dignity? Punishing him with law is enough. It seems [someone thinks] the Summer Palace was invaded again.
@小枕头_你别跑: If your boyfriend was among those onlookers at the scene, girls, please dump him without any hesitation. Because he is not a man at all!
@地球太危险人类太复杂: Before the Big Brother [the Chinese man in the video] rescued the girl, the foreigner had already been surrounded by quite a group of people. What were those people doing? Just because the girl lying on the ground is not your sister, you can turn a blind eye?

Here are the reactions of laowai to the incident and Chinese netizens’ comments on popular blog ChinaSmack.

@anon: I don't get the impression that people are making it sound as if ALL foreigners are doing this every day in China. I think its all in your head. 
@JeffG. : Unfortunately I bet stuff like this happens much more than we know. 
@donscarletti: There's no "we" in foreigners, whatever culture you come from probably has just as much or more in common with Chinese culture than [any] other given nationality. ...