A home video showing a four-year-old Chinese boy being forced by his parents to run almost naked through the snow in bitterly cold New York has sparked an online uproar.
In the video, the little boy runs towards his father, who is filming him, in thick snow with only his shoes and underpants on, at times crying bitterly and pleading with his dad to take him in his arms.

On several occasions, both parents tell their son to lie down in the snow, which he does eventually when his mother presses him.

The film was posted online by the boy's father, who comes from the eastern city of Nanjing, and has been viewed by tens of thousands of people on various video-sharing websites including YouTube.

The father was trying to train his son to be strong, his personal assistant told AFP.

But the footage has sparked debate about the tough parenting style for which China became known after Amy Chua's controversial book 'Tiger Mother'.

'I don't agree with this... We should give children a happy childhood, those terrible parents say they do this for their child's own good, but I think their purpose is just to be able to brag in the future,' one netizen said.

'I really don't support this, poor kid, does the kid's mother let the father do whatever he wants to do?' another person said on Sina's popular weibo microblogging service - the Ch.