Mbappé, Mao and the cost of offending China

When Real Madrid apologised on Wednesday for Kylian Mbappé’s remark describing Mao Zedong as a dictator, the statement was fulsome in the strict sense of the word. Mbappé himself had already issued his own apology, describing his comment as ill-judged, and the Spanish football league La Liga said it deeply regretted the offence he caused.

“Real Madrid CF wishes to express its apologies to the Chinese people for any discomfort caused by the recent words ​of our player Kylian Mbappé,” the club said.

“Our club maintains a deep respect for China, its history, its culture ​and its citizens, as well as for the millions of Chinese fans who feel affection and admiration for Real Madrid.”

By then, the social media frenzy was such that Mbappé had lost sponsorship deals with Chinese energy-drinks giant Eastroc Beverage and Mengniu Dairy while Swiss sportswear brand On removed all references to him from its communications in China. The sports channels on Chinese state television network CCTV briefly suspended coverage of La Liga matches and Real Madrid’s game against Racing Santander on Sunday will not be broadcast in China.

The trouble started when an interview resurfaced of Mbappé telling a French talkshow about memes of him, including one with his face superimposed on an image of Mao.

“That makes me laugh the most, it’s the one where there’s a video of a guy, I think it’s a Chinese dictator,” he said.

The official Communist Party assessment of Mao, determined after his death, is that he was 70 per cent good and 30 per cent bad. The bad includes the Great Leap Forward, an economic experiment that caused a famine that killed tens of millions, and the Cultural Revolution, a decade-long purge of intellectuals, party rivals and others that saw children encouraged to denounce their own parents.

But Mao is still revered in China, where his portrait looks over Tiananmen Square in Beijing as the leader of the revolution that led to the foundation of the communist state. When news of Mbappé’s remark reached China, social media sites like Weibo exploded with indignation and calls for an apology.

[ ‘Still the greatest.’ China remembers Mao but prefers to focus on his youth than later yearsOpens in new window ]

Social media in China is subject to censorship and posts deemed unacceptable are removed quickly, but it is not controlled or directed by the authorities. Storms of controversy blow up every day about everything from celebrity misbehaviour to historical or philosophical disputes, with tens of millions of people getting worked up into a state until a new row takes over.

Most of those who were commenting on Mbappé’s remark probably never heard it or even knew exactly what he said, because it was not repeated in Chinese media. Only the minority with a VPN to circumvent the Great Firewall around the Chinese internet would have been able to access news sources that carried the interview clip.

But they knew he had insulted Mao and they perceived his comment as a demonstration of disrespect towards China, where Mbappé has been until this week a popular figure. Many social media posts referred to the fact that the footballer was happy to make money in China but was casually disparaging the country.

“The Chinese market has never turned away world-class stars, but it will never leave the door open for the arrogance of those who ‘eat from the pot and then smash it’,” read one post on Weibo.

The Mbappé row is the latest in a series of controversies involving foreign sports figures making remarks that, in the favoured phrase of the authorities “hurt the feelings of the Chinese people”. It is the fourth involving Real Madrid in two years and follows an enormous row in 2019 when Houston Rockets manager Daryl Morey praised pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong, leading to an 18-month Chinese television boycott of the NBA.

What all of these controversies reflect is the sensitivity of a people that has had a swift ascent from poverty to relative prosperity, a familiar experience in Ireland where criticism from outside is similarly unwelcome. And in a huge market where brand loyalty is shallow, a negative jolt to public sentiment can wipe vast fortunes off the bottom line of multinational companies.

While the Mbappé storm was raging this week, a parallel controversy was playing out around Sanrio, the company behind Hello Kitty and its tie-in with Vivant, a Japanese television spy thriller. Chinese media said Vivant distorted the truth about Japan’s war against China, depicting the Chinese as the aggressors, and by Thursday the company had ended its relationship with the show.

“Since its inception, Sanrio has consistently used its characters to convey values such as care and connection, and remains committed to its corporate philosophy of fostering harmony among all people,” Sanrio said in a statement.

“We take the feedback we have received regarding this incident very seriously. Moving forward, we will strengthen our review processes for all future collaborative projects.”