His groveling apology for calling Mao a dictator will only embolden the regime to continue to bully anyone who calls out its bloody record.
Calling Mao Zedong a dictator is simply a statement of fact. But the Chinese Communist Party does not like it when the truth is told.
The captain of the French national soccer team and Real Madrid star player Kylian Mbappé has attracted the ire of Beijing by innocently describing, on a French talk show, a meme of his face superimposed on an image of Mao. He said it was the meme that made him laugh the most, describing it as “a video of a guy, I think it’s a Chinese dictator.”
The subsequent furor illustrates three things about the regime in Beijing — as well as the naïveté of people such as Mbappé where China is concerned.
Beijing’s reaction — leading to at least three Chinese corporations dropping sponsorships of Mbappé — shows that the CCP hates the truth about its bloody past and repressive present being exposed; that it has no sense of humor; and that, although it likes to project strength, it is in fact profoundly paranoid, neurotic, and insecure.
The Chinese foreign ministry, along with the soccer forum Dongqiudi, condemned Mbappé’s comments, saying that they “hurt the feelings of Chinese people.” Chinese drinks company Dongpeng Beverage, dairy producer Mengniu, and cheese maker Milkground announced they would drop sponsorships of Mbappé, and the state broadcaster China Central Television said it would cease featuring content related to the French striker and stop showing Spanish soccer league matches.
But as absurd as the Chinese reaction is, it is the response by Mbappé, Real Madrid, and La Liga — the Spanish soccer league — that is even more troubling. Instead of standing by his factual remarks, Mbappé issued a groveling apology, describing his comment as “ill-judged” and saying he understands that it “hurt many people in China and in Chinese communities around the world.” La Liga also apologized, saying it “deeply regrets the offence that Kylian Mbappé’s recent comments have caused among Chinese fans.” Real Madrid issued a similar statement.
These apologies are profoundly dangerous because they play entirely into the CCP’s hands.
Mao was, in fact, one of history’s worst dictators. Saying so is not necessarily an insult, but a matter of record.
A paramilitary policemen stands guard as workers hang a new portrait of Chairman Mao Zedong at the Tiananmen Gate in Beijing in 2011. (China Daily/Reuters)
During his rule over China, from the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949 until his death in 1976, it is estimated that at least 40 million people, and perhaps as many as 70 million, died. His disastrous Great Leap Forward policy, designed to move China from an agrarian to an industrial economy, resulted in a famine causing tens of millions of deaths. This was followed by the decade-long Cultural Revolution, which saw books burned, intellectuals beaten, and several million people killed. Anyone who doubts the scale of the bloodshed under Mao should read historian Frank Dikötter’s powerful trilogy on his era. Mao killed more people than Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler. Calling him a dictator seems, if anything, an understatement.
Mao also paved the way for continued repression in China today.
Successive CCP dictators following Mao have presided over a system responsible for grave violations of human rights — including, most starkly, the massacre of thousands in Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989, atrocities in Tibet, the targeting of Falun Gong practitioners for forced organ harvesting, the persecution of Christians, the crackdown in Hong Kong, and the genocide of the Uyghurs. The China Tribunal and the Uyghur Tribunal, both chaired by British lawyer Sir Geoffrey Nice, who prosecuted Slobodan Milošević, taken together with assessments by the United States and other governments and legislatures around the world and independent human rights experts, accuse the CCP of committing mass atrocity crimes for which it should be held to account.
When it feels aggrieved, the CCP usually deploys the line that the “feelings” of the Chinese people have been “hurt.” But in a society that does not allow independent opinion polls, let alone free elections or free speech, how can they know how 1.4 billion people really feel? It is quite likely that many of them, especially those who have suffered under Mao and his successors, would agree with Mbappé that Mao is a dictator — as is China’s current ruler, Xi Jinping.
Apologizing to Beijing risks whitewashing the CCP’s almost 80 years of mass murder, torture, and repression and will simply embolden the regime to continue to bully and threaten anyone who calls out its bloody record. It also undermines freedom of expression in democratic societies as a result.
The withdrawal of Chinese corporate sponsorships and television audiences will be financially painful for soccer players and their teams for a while. But Mbappé, Real Madrid, and La Liga should have stood their ground and over time sought alternative corporate sponsorship, instead of kowtowing. Their fans should feel ashamed, not by Mbappé’s original comments but by the failure to defend them.
