What did Mbappé actually say? In China the anger is total, but the cause is hard to find

What did Kylian Mbappé say to make China so angry? The question is simple. But try to find the answer on China's internet and the trouble begins. Some people are asking the question, some are turning to artificial intelligence for answers, and some who try to answer resort to coded language, as if they were discussing not football but a secret state operation.

By now, several Chinese brands have cut ties with the Real Madrid forward. State broadcaster China Media Group has suspended its La Liga broadcasts. China's foreign ministry has also said that all sectors of society will unite against words and deeds that hurt the feelings of the Chinese people. Yet after all that, many people on Chinese social media are still searching for the answer to one question: what did Mbappé actually say?

It began with a meme. Mbappé attended the Ballon d'Or ceremony on Monday, and that day a clip from an interview went viral on social media. Asked about his funniest meme, Mbappé said he had liked a video in which his face was placed on the body of a “Chinese dictator”. As he spoke, the figure of China's former leader Mao Zedong appeared on screen.

Making fun of Mao Zedong is an extremely sensitive matter in China. Historians say policies taken during his rule caused the deaths of millions of people, yet openly mocking him in China is a near-forbidden subject.

The video of Mbappé was, in fact, several months old. But once it spread on social media this time, the reaction in China was fierce. Commercial partners withdrew one by one, La Liga broadcasts were halted, and both Mbappé and his club Real Madrid had to apologise.

Many people in China, however, know about the reaction without understanding exactly which remark caused it all. According to a BBC report, many users on the Chinese social media platform Weibo are asking what Mbappé said. Access to information from the outside world is strictly controlled on China's internet, so while discussion of Mbappé rages, how it started remains unknown to many.

Those who do know cannot answer straightforwardly either, and so coded language has taken over. Instead of naming Mao directly, some introduce him as “the person on the 100-yuan note”. Others call him “the teacher” — a title Mao himself once used.

The same tactics appear in shared photos and videos. Parts of the meme are blurred; in some places Mbappé's face is covered, in others the word “dictator” is removed. The attempt to convey the point is there, but there seems to be no way to show or say it in full.

Some have turned to artificial intelligence to learn the cause, with little success: the AI chatbots used in China are under the same controls as its internet. Notably, it is not only ordinary users who avoid Mao's name. None of the formal statements about Mbappé's remark mentioned him either — not China's foreign ministry, nor the apologies from Mbappé, Real Madrid or La Liga. The anger is complete; the cause, apparently, cannot be said.