The key facts

  • Mbappé apologized for remarks about a 'Chinese dictator,' but criticism on Chinese social media continues
  • Xiaohongshu and Weibo froze his accounts, and Dior and Hublot, according to media reports, removed content related to him
  • In China, the very mention of Mao Zedong is censored: state media speak only of 'inappropriate remarks about China'

A joke with serious consequences

Real Madrid footballer Kylian Mbappé apologized on Tuesday for a joke in which he named the funniest meme about himself a photo of his face superimposed on 'some guy — I think he's a Chinese dictator.' According to AFP, this was a reference to Mao Zedong, and it cost the player, who holds several commercial contracts, dearly in the huge Chinese market: several Chinese brands ended their cooperation with him, and state television pulled Spanish league broadcasts off the air.

Censorship instead of a quote

Notably, Mbappé's joke itself is not circulating on Chinese social media — it was either not reposted or deleted. State media avoid any mention of Mao, who remains a strictly taboo figure 50 years after his death, and write only about 'inappropriate remarks regarding China.' One Weibo user explained this in a comment quoted by AFP: 'His words are offensive to China and the Chinese people, so they cannot be translated.'

Accounts frozen, merchandise vanishing from shelves

Despite the apology, the wave of criticism did not subside on Wednesday. The Xiaohongshu app froze Mbappé's account, where he has more than a million followers, preventing him from gaining new ones; a similar measure is in effect on Weibo — with a notice about violating laws or community rules. According to Chinese media reports, Dior and Hublot removed content related to the footballer on Weibo; AFP's own check of their pages using Mbappé's Chinese name yielded no results. The cleanup is also visible offline: at the flagship Adidas store in Beijing's Sanlitun district, Real Madrid T-shirts were on sale, but not a single one with Mbappé's name. Meanwhile, unofficial merchandise — T-shirts, hats and caps — remains available on the Taobao marketplace.

From favorite to outcast

Only recently, Chinese state media praised Mbappé as a 'football sensation' and a 'talent,' his face adorned billboards and electrolyte drink packaging, and fans affectionately called him 'Guigui' — 'turtle' — for his resemblance to a character from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film. How quickly and for how long this situation will change, sources do not specify: AFP records only the current picture — continuing anger among users and the consistent removal of the footballer's traces from China's public space.