Why did China get so angry about Mbappe’s joke? - Asia Specific podcast, BBC World Service — Transcript

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1. 0:00So, Stephen, one of the biggest stories that everyone seems to be talking
2. 0:03about this week is... I think we can call him
3. 0:05one of the biggest stars in world football.
4. 0:07Kylian Mbappé apologizing to China along with his club Real Madrid and
5. 0:12the Spanish Football League La Liga.
6. 0:15So what happened here?
7. 0:16Well, Mariko, making fun of the man who many see as the founding father
8. 0:21of modern China and implying that Mao Zedong is a dictator,
9. 0:25can get you into a lot of hot water.
10. 0:27Kylian Mbappé has had lucrative sponsorship deals canceled.
11. 0:31La Liga has been pulled from television sets.
12. 0:34Just a little off the cuff comment
13. 0:36can turn into an absolute PR meltdown in China these days.
14. 0:41And we still don't know whether those apologies will be enough
15. 0:45to defuse this saga quickly.
16. 0:47So we're asking, why do so many celebrities
17. 0:50and companies apologize to China?
18. 0:52And are Beijing's demands to control how people outside
19. 0:55of China talk about it working?
20. 0:58I'm Mariko Oi in Singapore and this is Asia Specific from the BBC World Service.
21. 1:02Twice a week we bring you Asia Pacific stories
22. 1:05unpacked by those who know them best.
23. 1:12Stephen McDonell, of course, is the BBC's Beijing correspondent.
24. 1:16Welcome back to Asia Specific, Stephen.
25. 1:18Hello. How are you going? And we're joined by Mark Dreyer,
26. 1:22who's a sport journalist who founded a media platform,
27. 1:24China Sports Insider, based in Beijing.
28. 1:27And Mark, you've written a book called Sporting Superpower about China.
29. 1:31Thank you so much for coming on the pod. My pleasure.
30. 1:33Thanks for having me. So, Stephen, let's start with you.
31. 1:36This saga, it's got all the elements, doesn't it?
32. 1:39A super famous global football star, viral memes,
33. 1:43and then the wrath of a superpower.
34. 1:45So can you just talk us through exactly what happened?
35. 1:49To understand it, I think we should go back to the beginning.
36. 1:52And it's like this. So Kylian Mbappé, he's just such a dominant player.
37. 1:58In fact, he's even a dominant figure off the pitch,
38. 2:00but he's single handedly controlling matches, impacting results.
39. 2:05This has earned him the joke nickname The Dictator,
40. 2:08and so his fans have put up these goofy memes online with him,
41. 2:14sort of pasted onto like, his likeness merged
42. 2:19with various authoritarian figures throughout history,
43. 2:23including Mao Zedong.
44. 2:26Now, you know, this might have all just gone through to the keeper,
45. 2:30if I could use a sporting metaphor there,
46. 2:32except that an interview emerged, which was done half a year ago.
47. 2:38And in this, he just makes the like
48. 2:41literally just a throwaway line about these memes.
49. 2:43And he's like, oh, the one that really made me laugh was my head on this bloke.
50. 2:49I think he's some Chinese dictator.
51. 2:53Well, next thing: Chinese dictator,
52. 2:58his head on Chairman Mao, he's being attacked on social media.
53. 3:03He's having his sponsorship pulled in China and it's all happening.
54. 3:09Yeah, I mean, it's fascinating because people couldn't really even see that footage, right? In China.
55. 3:14They haven't in the in the sort of coverage here in the media,
56. 3:18even in most social media discussion.
57. 3:21What he's actually accused of having said, well,
58. 3:25which he did say, he said on, on tape.
59. 3:27It's not even being reported.
60. 3:31And that's because officials think it's too controversial, too sensitive
61. 3:35to be even talking about the question of whether Mao is a dictator.
62. 3:40So they've had to sort of say he's said things, various things to upset China,
63. 3:44hurt the Chinese, rude whatever hurt the feelings of the Chinese people.
64. 3:47And so you've got all these people online outraged
65. 3:51in the online echo chambers, as if Mbappé has personally attacked them,
66. 3:57and they've probably not even seen what he's actually said.
67. 4:01Mark, maybe if you can just put this
68. 4:03in context for people who aren't exactly football fans,
69. 4:07can you just describe, I guess, the level of Kylian Mbappé's influence?
70. 4:14And was he, you know, quite influential in China even before this saga?
71. 4:19Yeah. I mean, he's one of the the the top football players in the world.
72. 4:21Of course, probably after Messi and Haaland got huge here over the
73. 4:28over the World Cup in the summer signing a bunch of deals with Chinese brands.
74. 4:31Mbappé is is right there coming after after those two I would say.
75. 4:36Uh, he's he signed with um, obviously Chinese brands,
76. 4:39but also international endorsements
77. 4:41and some of those companies that have endorsed, uh,
78. 4:44Mbappé internationally are now struggling with their position
79. 4:46in the Chinese market and what to do and whether to apologize
80. 4:49and whether to pull down campaigns, uh, and so on.
81. 4:52I think just to give it the context that Stephen was talking about,
82. 4:55the frame of reference for this particular incident goes back to
83. 4:59to 2019 when, uh, an executive from the NBA posted, uh,
84. 5:04retweeted something about protests in Hong Kong that basically led
85. 5:09to NBA games being off air in China for more than a year.
86. 5:14And the NBA, who had been in China playing preseason games
87. 5:17twice every year, then didn't come back for six years.
88. 5:21And now they're playing in Macau, so they're not even back to the Chinese mainland.
89. 5:24So that was estimated to have cost the NBA hundreds of millions of dollars
90. 5:28in advertising revenue and sponsorship commitments and so on.
91. 5:31And so everyone's immediately thinking this is round two
92. 5:35of something similar that we've seen before, at least in a sporting context.
93. 5:39Yeah. I want to get to the apologies that they all quickly, uh, issued,
94. 5:44but just to understand further about why this meme
95. 5:48or this comment was so controversial, Stephen, I mean, Mao Zedong, I mean,
96. 5:53Mbappé himself didn't even name him, right?
97. 5:55He just said a Chinese dictator.
98. 5:58So how is Chairman Mao viewed in today's China,
99. 6:03and why is calling him a dictator so controversial?
100. 6:08If it had been any other Chinese leader, I suppose,
101. 6:12except the current Chinese leader, it would be
102. 6:15considerably less controversial.
103. 6:17But for many, Mao,
104. 6:20despite his enormous flaws, despite the disastrous impacts of his rule,
105. 6:28is nevertheless seen here by many people as the sort of father of modern China.
106. 6:34I mean, his body is in the middle of Tiananmen Square.
107. 6:39His painting is over Tiananmen Gate.
108. 6:41And so for some to attack Mao is kind of like to attack China.
109. 6:47MM. Interesting. So do you think I mean, I want your both your opinions,
110. 6:52but do you think the anger was organic?
111. 6:55If that's how Chairman Mao is still viewed today.
112. 6:59Let's start with you, Mark.
113. 7:01Well, I would go back to exactly how it broke here in China.
114. 7:04It was late on Monday night.
115. 7:06And this football app has sort of a news platform called Dong Qiu Di
116. 7:09posted, uh, a story about this happening.
117. 7:13And they said, Mbappé has insulted China and
118. 7:16it's so bad we can't even tell you what he said.
119. 7:18So people were waking up Tuesday and this was the framing.
120. 7:22And so at that point, all the truth and the context was lost.
121. 7:26Like the first time people heard about this was Mbappé insulted China.
122. 7:30He hurt our feelings.
123. 7:31And then we get this nationalist wave of sentiment,
124. 7:34if you think someone's attacked your country, I think, you know,
125. 7:37so that that is that is organic, that feeling, I think.
126. 7:40But they're reacting to something that is at best misleading.
127. 7:45Well, it's 100% being artificially inflamed, there's no doubt about that.
128. 7:51However, it started, I mean, as Mark was saying,
129. 7:54if you in China have a frame of reference presented to you.
130. 7:59It would take someone to then have to dig into what he really said.
131. 8:04And if that's not available to you, because all the materials
132. 8:06being blocked by the Great Wall, Great Firewall of China,
133. 8:11you can understand why people in that vacuum of knowledge might be angry.
134. 8:17So I guess because of that explosion of anger,
135. 8:21they were very quick to apologize, weren't they?
136. 8:24So Mbappé himself issued a statement saying my comment was ill judged.
137. 8:30And I now understand it hurt many people
138. 8:32in China and in Chinese communities around the world.
139. 8:35I apologize to everyone. My words have upset.
140. 8:38We've also heard from the Spanish Football League La Liga,
141. 8:41as well as Real Madrid. His club and also the head of La Liga
142. 8:46actually organized a meeting with the Chinese ambassador to Spain.
143. 8:50So obviously it got their attention.
144. 8:54Why were they so quick to apologize, Mark? Did they,
145. 8:58I guess, not have a choice given how huge the Chinese market is
146. 9:02to football or sports in general?
147. 9:05The only choice if you want to stay in the market is is to apologize.
148. 9:10Uh, he could have said, you know what? I didn't do anything wrong.
149. 9:14And, and that that was a choice available to him.
150. 9:17But then there's no way that brands could have associated with him,
151. 9:19not in the current environment. And that's not going to change anytime soon.
152. 9:23You know, when you are this famous with this high of a profile, it's gone past.
153. 9:29As Steven said, it's gone way past the point of, well,
154. 9:31did he say anything wrong?
155. 9:32It's just this is the reaction. Now, how do we how do we handle it?
156. 9:36Just one other thing in terms of La Liga, which we should remember,
157. 9:40is that according to the paper, which is a media outlet here,
158. 9:45China Central Television has is planning to pull all Spain games.
159. 9:51Like imagine that like all that advertising every not just his games,
160. 9:56all La Liga games. so they had to apologize for that reason.
161. 10:00Otherwise, they're just going to be just like with the NBA um, you know,
162. 10:07out the whole the whole competition will be out of the Chinese market.
163. 10:11But with these apologies, are they going to start showing those games or have they not said it yet?
164. 10:16Well, we're still waiting to hear.
165. 10:18So the games are slated for this weekend on Sunday.
166. 10:21It sounds to me as if they will probably if I had to give my best guess, uh,
167. 10:27skip some games for a time,
168. 10:29I don't think, uh, some quick apologies is going to completely brush it
169. 10:33under the carpet to say, okay, you've apologized, let's move on. Nothing.
170. 10:37Nothing else to see here that would feel too quick given everything we've seen.
171. 10:40It usually plays out over a number of weeks to months.
172. 10:45Yeah, because I was going to ask the Chinese Foreign Ministry's response to those apologies,
173. 10:51saying that it attaches importance to the apologies, Stephen.
174. 10:55What does that even mean? Well, that is a very good question.
175. 10:59But when I saw it, I thought it sounded like they're kind of saying, okay.
176. 11:05They accept the apologies. I mean, I mean, yeah,
177. 11:08well, I mean, they're not 100% saying they accept it, but they kind of are.
178. 11:12I mean, the and that would surely have signaling throughout the Chinese system.
179. 11:17Now, the important thing to remember here, though, is
180. 11:20that the Chinese political system is not like the Borg.
181. 11:25I mean, like they the Foreign Ministry will have its own views,
182. 11:28and certainly they're at the more liberal end of things here.
183. 11:31And they might want this to go away now. Okay.
184. 11:34They've had enough. He's apologized. Let's get on with it.
185. 11:37But maybe other parts of the Chinese system be thinking, no,
186. 11:40well, that's not enough. We want a better apology than that.
187. 11:43But really, I think now that he's apologized, what do they want to do?
188. 11:47Stand on his head? I mean, I, if I were him, I'd shut up about it now
189. 11:51and just let time heal the wounds.
190. 11:55It's going to be really interesting to see how quickly all is forgiven.
191. 11:59I think that there is. I'd like it to. I'd like it to be, you know.
192. 12:04Okay, let's let's let's pretend this never happened. Almost.
193. 12:06You've apologized. Let's move on.
194. 12:08But the history that we've had with some of these incidents in the past,
195. 12:12I'm not that confident we're going to see Spanish games, uh,
196. 12:14broadcast this weekend. I'm just curious though, Mark.
197. 12:18I mean, we've been talking about how important the Chinese market is
198. 12:21to not just football, but NBA and others as well.
199. 12:24But what kind of percentage are we talking about when it comes
200. 12:28to the revenue that China accounts for?
201. 12:30For those sports. For many leagues around the world,
202. 12:32it's going to be the second biggest market just in terms
203. 12:35of population, uh, globally, uh,
204. 12:38after their home market. Uh, that would be true for the NBA.
205. 12:41That would be true, um, for La Liga as well.
206. 12:44So can you get by without the market?
207. 12:46Yes, you can, but it's pretty tough. It's no one can really blame him
208. 12:51for saying okay, I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings.
209. 12:53I mean, I just think I'd love to have been a fly on the wall when he woke up.
210. 12:57This. All this all happened while he was sleeping. So imagine.
211. 13:00There he is. And he's getting up more, looking at his phone.
212. 13:03Oh, meltdown, meltdown.
213. 13:05And he's got to do something about it and his manager will be on:
214. 13:09I've been trying to call you all night. Um,
215. 13:12you know, like if I, if I was him, it's not just the money.
216. 13:16You'd want the hassle to go away. But I was.
217. 13:19We were going through some of the other apologies and there was a wrestler
218. 13:23and actor, John Cena who showed off his Mandarin skills when he apologized,
219. 13:29which was way more enthusiastic.
220. 13:31I think his sin, if we can call it that
221. 13:35in the Chinese eyes, was referring to Taiwan,
222. 13:38of course, the self-ruled island as a country. So let's hear what he said.
223. 13:56Stephen, talk us through what exactly like what was happening there?
224. 14:01And did it help that he spoke in Mandarin?
225. 14:04Yeah. Good on him for, you know, saying that in Mandarin.
226. 14:07I reckon his tones are pretty good. I think his Mandarin's not bad. So.
227. 14:11Yeah. Well done, John. But again, what this was all about was it was
228. 14:17just an off the cuff comment which exploded into a PR meltdown.
229. 14:22He's just saying, hey everyone.
230. 14:24Our Fast and Furious movie! First Country it opens in is... Taiwan!
231. 14:28Now, he's not trying to make a political point
232. 14:31about Taiwan being a country or anything like that.
233. 14:34But not only that, if it's a movie like a big action movie,
234. 14:38like a Fast and the Furious movie, the difference
235. 14:41between making it big in the Chinese market and not is absolutely massive.
236. 14:47Like this is we're talking big bucks here.
237. 14:50And so of course, he had to come out and try and neutralize this to,
238. 14:54to shut that down as soon as possible.
239. 14:57And it's interesting that it's not just all about politics and geopolitics.
240. 15:01Um, we were reading about the fashion designers Dolce
241. 15:04and Gabbana also having to apologize.
242. 15:06I think they also used a bit of Mandarin.
243. 15:11So, um, Steven, again, can you just unpack what exactly was their sin?
244. 15:16I mean, they had an ad with a beautiful Chinese model trying
245. 15:20to eat Italian food, like pizza,
246. 15:23using chopsticks and not doing a very good job of it.
247. 15:26And people said it was racist, culturally insensitive,
248. 15:29and what have you. Um, I mean, I remember when it happened.
249. 15:33I mean, people can argue about whether it's a stupid ad or not,
250. 15:36but I mean, I think soon after that there were runway shows cancelled.
251. 15:41So there was an immediate financial impact for that company.
252. 15:46And again, the problem is once the ball gets rolling in China,
253. 15:51it would take someone, you know, quite brave to be getting up
254. 15:54on social media here and saying, come on everyone, it's just a stupid ad.
255. 15:59Why does why does this tactic work almost every single time?
256. 16:03Why do companies almost immediately, immediately apologize?
257. 16:07If if I could sum it up in one sentence,
258. 16:10it's the outrage that we see in social media all across the world,
259. 16:13but it plays out here at a national level.
260. 16:16And I think that's the difference.
261. 16:18It's fed from the top and often directed from the top,
262. 16:22rather than just those idiots online that we can that we can ignore.
263. 16:26That's why it's so significant when we talk
264. 16:28about these commercial repercussions,
265. 16:30because it because it actually matters much more
266. 16:32than it would somewhere else where you can laugh it off more easily.
267. 16:35I want to I want to bring back to what Mark said, Stephen,
268. 16:39of whether or not this kind of, uh, Beijing's tactic or demand
269. 16:44to control what people outside of China say about their country,
270. 16:48whether it's actually working to make, I guess,
271. 16:52the image of China better outside of the country.
272. 16:55What do you think. Outside the country?
273. 16:58If you're worried about everyone talking about China, dictator, dictator, China,
274. 17:03and then you have this meltdown on=r something
275. 17:06like this demanding, groveling, apologies and what have you.
276. 17:10Well, that's not un-dictator-ish behavior, if I can put it that way.
277. 17:15And the funny thing that some people have said about
278. 17:19within China is that this could be what they call the Streisand effect.
279. 17:24An example of the Streisand effect.
280. 17:26You know, famously from Barbra Streisand, creating a bigger problem
281. 17:29by sueing someone and drawing more attention to it.
282. 17:32So imagine all these people wanting to know, well, what did Mbappé say?
283. 17:38Oh, I'm going to seek it out somewhere. Oh what? Mao's a dictator.
284. 17:41Mom, is Mao a dictator? Well, I guess...
285. 17:44And all of a sudden people are talking about whether Mao's dictator or not.
286. 17:47So you do risk having people discussing subjects that you wouldn't want them discussing.
287. 17:53And this is what they try to control it by saying, you've got to be angry
288. 17:57at this guy for something, he said without actually saying what it was.
289. 18:01Um, because it's it's risky business actually, when it comes to the party.
290. 18:06Do you think this tactic of Beijing trying to control
291. 18:09what celebrities these athletes say about China, do you think it is working,
292. 18:13whether or not it's working to make the image of China better?
293. 18:16Outside is another matter. But do you think people are going
294. 18:19to be more careful to say anything about China freely?
295. 18:24If we if we think of those two examples that we've talked about.
296. 18:27So Mbappé and John Cena, I mean, they they didn't say anything.
297. 18:33It's hard to think like if even if they were briefed, like, would they have said something differently?
298. 18:38It was just it was just a slip of the tongue. It was incidental.
299. 18:41It was it's such an indirect reference.
300. 18:43And so the logical conclusion to this is you just cannot speak about China
301. 18:48in any sort of context. I mean, I don't see where else we go.
302. 18:52If you, if you watch the Mbappé thing,
303. 18:54he's laughing about himself being called a dictator.
304. 18:57But is his response from the Chinese nationalist perspective?
305. 19:01Do they want him to have just said, oh, yes.
306. 19:03I don't find that funny at all. Um, maybe on the other faces it's funny,
307. 19:07but not on this one. Like like what?
308. 19:09What are they asking him to say? Or just to be like,
309. 19:11I don't... I did not see that meme. I don't know what you're talking about.
310. 19:15You know, it's like just that's the logical extension of
311. 19:19I mean, it's farcical even as we're saying this,
312. 19:21but but I don't know where else you go. A really interesting chat.
313. 19:26Thank you so much for joining me, Mark and Stephen.
314. 19:29Absolutely. You're welcome. Good to talk to you.
315. 19:32You've been watching Asia Specific from the BBC World Service
316. 19:35with me, Mariko Oi in Singapore.
317. 19:37If you have any questions or thoughts on what we covered in this episode
318. 19:40or any other stories from the region, please leave us a comment below.
319. 19:44You can also get in touch with us on email [email protected]
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321. 19:52See you next time.