A Mainland Chinese Perspective on the Mbappe Incident

At first, I didn't care about this incident at all. But then a friend brought it up with me. She was particularly struck by a remark made by a CCP spokesperson: “Mbappe has hurt the feelings of 1.4 billion Chinese people.” What bothered her was the absurdity of the CCP speaking on her behalf without her ever having consented to it.（EDIT: What bothered her wasn't the CCP speaking for China or its people, but its continued use of Mao-era rhetoric to claim that all 1.4 billion Chinese people had been offended, even when that sentiment was far from mainstream.）

This brings us to something quite revealing about the CCP's political rhetoric: Mao Zedong = the CCP = the PRC = China = the Chinese nation = 1.4 billion Chinese people. All of these are treated as though they were one and the same.

Now, setting aside the question of whether Mbappe actually insulted Mao Zedong (in my view, he simply stated a fact), even if he had, how could that possibly amount to an insult against 1.4 billion Chinese people? The implication seems to be that the Chinese people are either members of some kind of fanatical cult or a thoroughly brainwashed population living under a totalitarian regime like North Korea, where everyone is expected to think alike, feel alike, subscribe to the same narrative, and speak with one voice. The only voice allowed to speak for them is that of the CCP.

It is difficult to comprehend how a country that has undergone nearly half a century of reform and opening-up, and now has a population of 1.4 billion and the world's second largest economy, can still retain something so profoundly “North Korean” at its very core.

Of course, I don't deny that a considerable number of Chinese people still revere Mao Zedong, and that their feelings may genuinely have been hurt. People have different views of Mao's historical legacy, his achievements and his crimes. I may disagree with some of those views, but I respect people's right to hold them (even if they don't always extend the same courtesy to those who disagree with them).

In a healthy modern society, however, there should be room for a diversity of voices and open public debate about historical events and figures, including those regarded as great men in history. The Chinese government (or rather, the CCP) clearly sees things differently. It effectively excludes dissenters from the very category of “the people”, dismissing them as enemies backed by hostile foreign forces or as “patients” supposedly suffering from the so-called “spiritual pollution” from the West.

What I find most disheartening is that the CCP has never truly regarded the people it governs as autonomous citizens, capable of independent thought and reasoned judgment. Instead, it sees them as subjects to be managed or children to be disciplined, or, more bluntly, as instruments to be mobilized at will.

There is no denying that China has made considerable economic progress over the past four decades. Some in the West have even begun to wonder whether the Chinese model might be superior to the Western one. Yet the CCP's understanding of human happiness and dignity seems to be confined almost entirely to material well-being. In terms of its spiritual and intellectual life, however, China remains an impoverished society.

In the Xi Jinping era in particular, the cult of personality surrounding Xi, relentless ideological indoctrination, aggressive nationalist propaganda, and the systematic suppression of freedom of expression have not only left Chinese society increasingly stifled and dispirited, but have also had a deeply corrosive effect on younger generations. Among young Chinese, the effects are increasingly evident in two broad tendencies: ideological conformity on the one hand, and political apathy and cynicism on the other.

Even China's top leaders seem just as clueless about the outside world as the rulers of the late Qing dynasty. If they had understood the international backlash this would provoke, would they really have doubled down and made such a public spectacle of the whole affair? Instead, all they have accomplished is to make both Mao Zedong and China lose even more face on the world stage.

submitted by /u/Weekly-Entertainer94
[link] [comments]

Menu

Who Gets to Speak for 1.4 Billion People?