Photo credit, CFOTO/Future Publishing via Getty Images
Last Monday, while Kylian Mbappé attended the Ballon d'Or ceremony in London, he also found himself at the center of a huge controversy on Chinese social networks.
Football fans had come across a video where he joked about the meme that made him "laugh the most": his face was superimposed on that of a "Chinese dictator" resembling Mao Zedong, who oversaw one of the bloodiest chapters in the country's history.
The controversy spread like wildfire: Chinese brands stopped broadcasting it one after the other, and China Media Group, parent company of the state television channel CCTV, suspended the broadcast of La Liga matches. A spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said: “Words and actions that offend the sensibilities of the Chinese people naturally arouse unanimous opposition from all sectors of Chinese society. »
But on the Internet in China, few people explicitly stated these words and actions, or even used the name of Mao – who remains a near-sacred figure in the country.
End of content
China's sophisticated censorship system, which deprives 1.4 billion people of the Internet, has left many unaware of exactly what happened.
The accusation of “hurting the feelings of the Chinese people” alone seemed enough to trigger a tsunami of anger, amplified by social media algorithms and a heavily controlled internet, where people are reluctant to express an opinion contrary to that of the majority.
It didn't take long before Mbappé, one of the biggest stars in world football, offered his "sincere apologies" for his "awkward" comments. His club, Real Madrid, and the Spanish La Liga also apologized. China represents a huge market for the most popular sport in the world.
Beijing subsequently confirmed that it took the footballer’s apology “seriously”. The China Media group has not yet indicated whether the broadcast of the matches will resume.
End of Most read
But online anger persisted.
“An apology would be the minimum, but I don’t forgive him. I am for its exclusion,” read a very popular comment on Weibo.
Photo credit, Weibo
Verified information at your fingertips
Click here and subscribe!
End of WhatsApp Promotion
Mbappé did not mention Mao by name in the interview, but many felt any joke involving the founder of communist China crossed a line.
“Do you know who you hurt?” He is the spiritual pillar of the Chinese people,” read a comment on Weibo that received more than 700 likes.
“He is the most important figure in our history. Do you think a simple apology can fix everything? “, wrote another.
Paradoxically, despite the heated controversy, many people on Chinese social networks are still trying to understand the exact words of the French attacker. They tried to interrogate chatbots, just as censored as the Chinese internet, without success. Others tried to explain, but carefully avoided any mention of Mao.
References were made to "the person on the 100 yuan bill" and "the teacher", a title Mao once used for himself. Screenshots of the meme and interview were shared, with the word “dictator” and Mbappé’s face blurred.
Neither the statement from the Chinese Foreign Ministry nor the apologies presented by Mbappé, Real Madrid and La Liga directly mentioned Mao.
Mao, who led the Chinese Communist Party to victory in the civil war and founded the People's Republic of China, died in 1976.
Despite the turmoil that marked his reign, including the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, which led to a famine that killed tens of millions and triggered violent purges throughout Chinese society, he remains a revered figure in China.
Photo credit, AFP via Getty Images
A portrait of Mao dominates Tiananmen Square in Beijing, symbol of the central place he occupies in the contemporary Chinese imagination. Unlike other former Chinese leaders, his embalmed remains are on public display there, attracting tens of thousands of visitors every day. In recent years, we have observed a renewed interest in him among young people, who read his works and watch extracts of his speeches on social networks.
Chinese history textbooks downplay the devastation caused by Mao's regime. The Chinese Communist Party considers Mao's successes to outweigh his mistakes. In his eyes, he is “a great revolutionary and a great Marxist”.
But outside China, history sees Mao as both a revolutionary and a dictator. As a result, reactions within the diaspora – dissidents and people whose families had fled China decades earlier, following the fall of the Maoist regime – were very different.
“You don't need to apologize, you're not wrong,” read a popular comment, written in Chinese under the football star's statement.
“It is the CCP leaders who should apologize; they kidnapped the Chinese people and brainwashed them,” another Chinese netizen wrote.
On X and Threads, platforms inaccessible in China, the controversy generated even more memes. Some superimpose Mbappé's face on other images of Mao, while others go further by placing it on the body of China's current leader, Xi Jinping.
And then there was the rest of the Internet, simply perplexed.
“Frankly, it's difficult to understand... It seems that people no longer have the right to criticize their leaders. And they expect the whole world to think like them? This is absurd,” read a very popular comment under Real Madrid’s apology on Instagram.
“How dare you call a dictator a dictator? This is awful,” another user wrote on X.
We used AI to help translate this article, originally written in English. A BBC journalist checked the translation before publication. Learn more about how we use AI.
Discover more
Look!
End of Look!
