{"id":3373,"date":"2026-10-27T16:03:53","date_gmt":"2026-10-27T11:03:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=3373"},"modified":"2026-10-27T16:03:53","modified_gmt":"2026-10-27T11:03:53","slug":"chinese-brands-cut-ties-with-mbappe-over-mao-meme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=3373","title":{"rendered":"Chinese brands cut ties with Mbappe over Mao meme"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p><strong>At least three Chinese companies have ended their endorsement agreements with French football star Kylian Mbappe after comments he made about a meme depicting him as Mao Zedong sparked a backlash on Chinese social media.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Beverage maker Dongpeng, dairy giant Mengniu and cheese producer Milkground announced the decisions on Tuesday, saying they opposed \u201cany words and actions that hurt national sentiment\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>The companies did not specify the reasons for ending their partnerships.<\/p>\n<p>The announcements followed the circulation of a video clip showing Mbappe discussing his favourite meme during an interview ahead of an appearance on French online talk show \u201cThe Bridge\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Asked about the meme, the Real Madrid and France forward reportedly described a video featuring a man he believed was a Chinese dictator.<\/p>\n<p>The clip then showed an edited image of Mbappe\u2019s face superimposed on the body of Mao Zedong, the founding leader of the People\u2019s Republic of China.<\/p>\n<p>Football fans frequently use dictator-themed memes to joke about Mbappe\u2019s influence over his teammates and clubs.<\/p>\n<p>However, the clip triggered criticism among Chinese social media users, with several hashtags calling for boycotts and highlighting the companies\u2019 decisions trending on Weibo.<\/p>\n<p>China\u2019s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said that words and actions hurting the feelings of the Chinese people would naturally face opposition from across Chinese society.<\/p>\n<p>Social media platform RedNote also said its content partnership with Mbappe had ended on December 31, 2024, and that it would remove related promotional materials.<\/p>\n<p>The platform expressed opposition to conduct that hurts national sentiment. Mbappe\u2019s account was not accepting new followers on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At least three Chinese companies have ended their endorsement agreements with French football star Kylian Mbappe after comments he made about a meme depicting him as Mao Zedong sparked a backlash on Chinese social media. Beverage maker Dongpeng, dairy giant Mengniu and cheese producer Milkground announced the decisions on Tuesday, saying they opposed \u201cany words and actions that hurt national sentiment\u201d. The companies did not specify the reasons for ending their partnerships. The announcements followed the circulation of a video clip showing Mbappe discussing his favourite meme during an interview&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english"],"gutentor_comment":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3373\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}