A commercial for laundry soap that started airing this month in China is raising eyebrows -- for all the wrong reasons.

The ad for Qiaobi shows a woman loading clothes into a washing machine when she is approached by a black man covered with splatters of paint.

She beckons him closer, sticks a soap packet in his mouth and stuffs him into the machine.

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A few seconds later, the woman opens the lid and -- surprise! -- an Asian man emerges. And the paint splatters are gone.

An image from a commercial for the Chinese laundry detergent Qiaobi. YouTube

Reaction on social media was swift and harsh, with many comments too salty to reprint.

@Qiaobi having a hard time selling detergent? Racist much????? https://t.co/S452uembHP — William Jeffery (@CoachJeffery) May 26, 2016

I am not sure this was the brand awareness Qiaobi expected to get. https://t.co/Li7Iv0l5U1 — Jonathan Murphy (@jmurphy850) May 26, 2016

Why would the Black guy agree to be in this racist advert? https://t.co/SHmftDMqX7 — Paul Henriques (@PaulH) May 26, 2016

As Shanghaiist reported, the ad is actually a copy of an Italian commercial for Coloreria detergent from 2007 -- even the music is the same.

The big difference: in the earlier spot, an Italian man put into the washer is transformed into a black man, with the tag line “Coloured is better.”

Shanghaiist pointed out, “Thanks to traditional beauty standards valuing white skin, many Chinese people have a well-established phobia of dark skin which unfortunately also breeds racist attitudes towards people of African descent, who are viewed by some as “dirty” simply because of their skin tone.”