Kylian Mbappé was attending the Ballon d’Or ceremony in London on Monday night when he became the centre of a major controversy on Chinese social media. Football fans in China had come across a clip of him joking about a meme that he said made him laugh the most. In the meme, his face is placed over a “Chinese dictator” who resembles Mao Zedong.
The row quickly grew. Chinese brands distanced themselves from the French forward one by one, and China Media Group, the parent group of the state broadcaster CCTV, suspended broadcasts of La Liga matches. Mbappé then said he was “sincerely sorry” for his “ill-judged” comment, and his club, Real Madrid, and La Liga also issued apologies.
Broadcast suspensions and brand withdrawals follow the joke
China’s foreign ministry addressed the matter through a spokesperson, who said that words and actions hurting the feelings of the Chinese people would be met with united opposition from every part of Chinese society. Beijing later said it was taking the footballer’s apology “seriously”. China Media Group has yet to say whether its broadcasts will resume.
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The accusation alone appeared enough to stir a wave of anger online. Social media algorithms amplified the reaction on a heavily controlled internet, where users are wary of expressing views that differ from the majority. Dairy company Mengniu, an official sponsor of the Fifa World Cup, also cut ties with the footballer after the backlash.
The anger did not fade quickly. One top comment on Weibo said an apology was the least Mbappé should offer, but that the commenter did not forgive him and supported a ban on him. Another Weibo comment, which was liked by more than 700 users, described the Chinese leader in question as the spiritual pillar of the Chinese people. On Tuesday, Mbappé’s Weibo account was also restricted, with new users barred from following it.
Chinese users struggle to pin down what was said
Many people in China were still unsure what the footballer had actually said. Few posts on the Chinese internet spelled out the words or actions in question, and many avoided using Mao’s name altogether. Mao remains a near-sacred figure in the country, and the censorship system, which cuts off around 1.4 billion people from the global internet, made the picture harder to piece together.
Some users turned to AI chatbots, but these tools are also heavily censored and could not answer the question. Others tried to explain the situation without directly naming Mao. Posts referred instead to “the person on the 100 yuan note” and to “the teacher”, a title Mao once used for himself. Screenshots of the meme and interview circulated with the word “dictator” and Mbappé’s face blurred out.
Neither the foreign ministry’s statement nor the apologies from Mbappé, Real Madrid and La Liga named Mao directly. Mbappé himself did not mention Mao by name in the interview, yet many people felt that any joke involving the founder of Communist China crossed a line.
Mao’s legacy and divided reactions beyond China
Mao led the Chinese Communist Party to victory in the civil war and founded the People’s Republic of China. He died in 1976. His rule included the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, which led to a famine that killed tens of millions and unleashed violent purges across Chinese society.
Despite this turmoil, he remains a revered figure in China. A portrait of him overlooks Tiananmen Square in Beijing, and his embalmed body is displayed there, drawing tens of thousands of visitors each day. Recent years have also seen renewed interest in him among young people, who read his works and watch clips of him online.
Chinese history books play down the devastation of Mao’s rule. The Chinese Communist Party’s official verdict is that his achievements outweigh his mistakes, and it describes him as “a great revolutionary and a great Marxist”. Outside China, however, history views him as both a revolutionary and a dictator, and reactions in the diaspora were very different. Dissidents and people whose families fled China decades ago in the wake of Mao’s rule were among those who responded.
One highly liked comment in Chinese under the footballer’s statement on X told him he did not need to apologise because he was not wrong. Another user argued that the Communist Party should apologise, claiming it had kidnapped the Chinese people and brainwashed them. On X and Threads, which cannot be accessed in China, the episode produced more memes, some placing Mbappé’s face on images of Mao and others putting him on the body of current Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
Elsewhere online, many people were simply puzzled. One top comment under Real Madrid’s apology on Instagram said it was hard to understand why people could not speak against their leaders, and questioned why the rest of the world was expected to think the same way. Another user on X simply asked how anyone could call a dictator a dictator.
