Oh oh oh, Mbappé, all those goals, yet you lost so many points on Chinese social media today. It’s Ballon d’Or night, and French football player Mbappé is all the talk on Chinese social media - but not for his achievements, but for what is seen as crossing a major red line in an online interview. When asked about his favorite meme on a French YouTube show, Mbappé replied that one of the memes he finds funniest is “the one where they put my face on a Chinese dictator" (Mao Zedong). Although the interview and the joke were lighthearted in tone, this Mao meme completely backfired on Chinese social media, where backlash erupted today after the interview recirculated online and Chinese football app Dongqiudi (懂球帝) issued a statement saying his remarks had “hurt the feelings of Chinese people.” Many of those who know what it’s all about are angry, saying he’s showing utter disrespect for Chinese history and national feelings. The comments hurt all the more because Mbappé has a huge commercial presence in China (sometimes you would literally see him in every other online ad), which explains much of the “you profit from China and yet do this” tone that’s widespread online. But many people also don’t understand what it’s about. Because Dongqiudi would not actually translate or explain his remarks, and even Chinese AI bots will not properly lay out what the fuss is about, many netizens without a VPN are still left in the dark about why all the talk about boycotting Mbappé is actually happening. And so some netizens try to explain the controversy in various ways, without actually mentioning what was said, writing cryptic things like: -“Just look at a renminbi banknote and you’ll understand,” or: -“You could think of it as a Chinese football star saying in an interview that he likes Photoshopping his own head onto President Washington’s head on the US dollar, and that it’s really funny.” If this boycott grows beyond today, I wonder how many more cryptic descriptions we’ll come across. Seems like Mbappé is caught up in a game of Taboo in China.

Coming soon, Safeguard Defenders new book on #RSDL, with contributions from Michael Kovrig, Cheng Lei, Lee Ming-Che and many others, this brand new book focuses on foreign victims of the nationwide system for disappearances, including when used as part of hostage diplomacy.

We've translated and posted a fairly important and high-level internal police report from Urumqi (dated July 2018): shahit.biz/reportcont.php?re… It details the detentions and repression in higher education specifically, including the suicide of a school director. (1/11)