French football star Kylian Mbappé has committed the unforgivable sin of suggesting that Mao was a dictator. Now the Middle Kingdom is in uproar.
The story began with something as innocent as a doctored image on the internet. Someone had put Mbappé’s face on the body of none other than Mao himself. Images like these have become a genre of their own online. People cut and paste, poke fun at celebrities and create bizarre juxtapositions. Most are forgotten within hours. But this image took on a life of its own.
In an interview, Mbappé was asked which picture of himself he found funniest. He singled out the doctored Mao image and described the man as “some guy—I think he was a Chinese dictator”.
That was all. Mbappé made no speech about China. He demanded no political reforms, did not criticise Xi Jinping and urged no one to rebel. He simply talked about a picture that made him laugh and that he wanted to share with his friends. But in China, you cannot laugh at just anyone. Some people are above being laughed at, even if they have been asleep for half a century.
When the video clip began circulating on Chinese social media, events followed their familiar course whenever the Communist Party’s sacred symbols are challenged. Anger erupted, insults flew, and national feelings were declared hurt.
Several Chinese companies suddenly felt an urgent need to distance themselves from Mbappé. Beverage giant Dongpeng and dairy group Mengniu ended their partnerships with him. Cheese producer Milkground did the same. All stressed that they could not tolerate words or actions that hurt the feelings of the Chinese people.
Before long, China’s foreign ministry had also entered the fray. Spokesman Guo Jiakun explained that remarks hurting Chinese people’s feelings would meet with “resolute opposition” from all sections of society. The country’s state broadcaster followed up by suspending coverage of the Spanish football league, where Mbappé plays for Real Madrid. Sponsorship deals went up in smoke, and Chinese football fans demanded even harsher punishment for the Frenchman.
The rest of us, who take a more relaxed view of authority, are left almost speechless. Here is one of the world’s most powerful states, with nuclear weapons, aircraft carriers, an advanced space programme and the world’s second-largest economy. The country is ruled by a party with more than a hundred million members, and its authorities have built one of the world’s most extensive surveillance systems. Yet all it takes is a doctored image and a few offhand remarks from a 27-year-old footballer for China to feel deeply offended.
It must be exhausting to be so powerful and yet so thin-skinned.
Mao ruled China for 27 years, from the Communist takeover in 1949 until his death in 1976. He presided over a ruthless one-party system that brought disaster upon an entire people. No free elections could threaten his power. No independent press could hold him accountable. No opposition could rise against him without risking severe reprisals.
If these are not the hallmarks of a dictatorship, what is a dictatorship?
Mao’s Great Leap Forward, which began in 1958, triggered one of the worst famines in world history. Scholarly estimates vary. Chinese journalist Yang Jisheng has put the death toll at around 35 million. Dutch historian and China scholar Frank Dikötter goes even higher, arriving at a figure of around 45 million. Both have written hefty volumes about what happened.
Behind these incomprehensible numbers lie human tragedies that almost defy description. Children dying in their parents’ arms, families eating bark and roots, and entire villages perishing.
When China finally began to recover from the catastrophe, Mao launched the Cultural Revolution in 1966. Millions were persecuted and humiliated. Teachers were brutalised by their own pupils. Historic buildings, temples and art treasures were destroyed. Families were torn apart as children denounced their parents and friends denounced one another. All in the name of the revolution and the great leader.
Mao was also the man who united China after many years of war and political disintegration. He helped bring a long period of foreign interference and national humiliation to an end. But history does not absolve him of responsibility for the catastrophes. A man can play a decisive role in his country’s liberation and still be a brutal dictator.
The most remarkable thing about the hysteria surrounding Mbappé is that the Communist Party itself acknowledged long ago that Mao made serious mistakes. In 1981, five years after his death, the party leadership adopted a historic resolution condemning the Cultural Revolution. Mao was explicitly held responsible for launching it and keeping it going. At the same time, the party stressed that his achievements outweighed his mistakes.
This was summed up in the famous formula that Mao had been 70 per cent right and 30 per cent wrong. That is why his portrait still hangs above the entrance to the Forbidden City in Beijing. And that is why thousands of brainwashed Chinese people flock to his mausoleum in Tiananmen Square every day.
The joke could cost Mbappé dearly. Just two of his Chinese sponsorship deals reportedly had a combined value of around NOK 80 million, according to the French newspaper Le Monde. How much he will actually lose remains unclear.
The football star has now apologised to the deeply wounded Chinese people. He had, of course, no reason to do so. The head of the Spanish football federation has also fallen to his knees and begged for mercy. The next chapter in this ridiculous saga will be along shortly.
