China made Mbappé apologise - but many don't know exactly what he said

On Monday night, as Kylian Mbappé was attending the Ballon d'Or ceremony in London, he was also becoming the centre of a huge controversy on Chinese social media.

Football fans had stumbled upon a clip of him joking about the meme that makes him "laugh the most" - where his face is superimposed on a "Chinese dictator" resembling Mao Zedong, who oversaw one of the bloodiest chapters in the country's past.

The controversy spread like wildfire as Chinese brands cut him off one by one and China Media Group, the parent group of state broadcaster CCTV, suspended broadcasts of La Liga matches. A foreign ministry spokesperson said: "Words and actions that hurt the feelings of the Chinese people will naturally be met with joint opposition from all sectors of Chinese society."

But on the Chinese internet, few were explicitly spelling out those words and actions, or even using the name of Mao - who remains a near-sacred figure in the country.

China's sophisticated censorship system, which cuts 1.4 billion people off from the global internet, meant many didn't know exactly what had happened.

The accusation of "hurting the feelings of the Chinese people" alone seemed enough to trigger a tsunami of anger, amplified by social media algorithms and a heavily controlled internet, where people are wary of disagreeing with the majority view.

It wasn't long before Mbappé, one of the biggest football stars in the world, said he was "sincerely sorry" for his "ill-judged" comment. His club, Real Madrid, and the Spanish league La Liga, also issued apologies. China is a huge market for the world's most popular sport.

But the anger online lingered.

"An apology is the least he should do, but I don't forgive him. I support a ban on him," read a top comment on Weibo.

Mbappé did not mention Mao by name in the interview, but many felt any joke that involved the founder of Communist China crossed a line.

"Do you know who you hurt? He is the spiritual pillar of the Chinese people," read one Weibo comment liked by more than 700 users.

Weibo users shared the clip by blurring the meme and redacting references to Mao

Ironically, despite the heavy backlash, many on Chinese social media are still asking what exactly the French forward said. They tried AI chatbots, which are just as censored as the Chinese internet and couldn't provide any answers. Others attempted to explain, but skirted around any mention of Mao.

References were made to "the person on the 100 yuan note" and "the teacher", a title Mao once used for himself. Screenshots of the meme and interview were shared, with both the word "dictator" and Mbappé's face blurred out.

Mao, who led the Chinese Communist Party to victory in the civil war and founded the People's Republic of China, died in 1976.

Despite the turmoil of his rule, including 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, he remains a revered figure in China.

A portrait of Mao overlooks Beijing's Tiananmen Square, a symbol of how central he is in the modern Chinese imagination. Unlike other former Chinese leaders, his embalmed body is placed on public display there, drawing tens of thousands of visitors every day. In recent years, there has been a revival of interest in him among young people, who read his works and watch clips of him on social media.

Chinese history books downplay the devastation during Mao's rule. The Chinese Communist Party's verdict on Mao is that his achievements outweigh his mistakes. In their eyes, he is "a great revolutionary and a great Marxist".

But outside China, history sees Mao as both a revolutionary and a dictator. And so reactions among the diaspora - dissidents as well as people whose families fled China decades ago, in the wake of Mao's rule - was very different.

"The ones who should apologise are the CCP; they kidnapped the Chinese people and brainwashed them," another Chinese user wrote.

On X and Threads, neither of which are accessible in China, the controversy spawned even more memes. Some feature Mbappé's face on other images of Mao, while others go further, placing him on the body of current Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

Dairy company Mengniu, an official sponsor of the Fifa World Cup, cut ties with the footballer after the backlash

"How dare you call a dictator a dictator? Terrible," another user on X wrote.