The answer doesn't name him, or say what he said.

Transcript

1. We noted relevant reports.
2. Any rhetoric or action that hurts the feelings of the Chinese people
3. will naturally be rejected across the sectors in China.
4. That's China's foreign ministry on Tuesday, asked about Kylian Mbappé.
5. The answer doesn't name him, or say what he said.
6. Here is what he said, in a clip from last spring that Reuters could not verify.
7. Asked for his favourite meme of himself,
8. he picked one of him as "a guy, I think he's a Chinese dictator."
9. It put his face on Mao Zedong, who founded the People's Republic.
10. Months later, in September, he said such comparisons were only partly funny,
11. "because we know the damage that people like that have caused."
12. The clip was circulating on Monday.
13. Late that night in Beijing,
14. the Chinese football site Dongqiudi said he had hurt China's feelings,
15. and would not translate his words.
16. State TV stopped showing the Spanish league.
17. By morning, three brands had ended their deals with him.
18. AFP reported 430 million views for a topic on Weibo,
19. a Chinese social network, about one of them.
20. Two brands used the words the ministry would use that afternoon:
21. any rhetoric or action that hurts the feelings of the Chinese people.
22. Then the ministry answered.
23. Then the Spanish league apologised, for all its clubs.
24. Then Mbappé wrote that his comment was ill-judged,
25. and "this was absolutely not my intention."
26. We read every statement we could find in full.
27. None repeats his words.
28. China's state-run Global Times: "Many Chinese would rather not repeat it."
29. We searched the ministry's English briefing records since 2002,
30. collected by researchers: 35,000 questions and answers.
31. "Hurt the feelings of the Chinese people,"
32. word for word or in a close variant, is in 30.
33. 16 are about Japan.
34. Most of the rest, other governments.
35. In its Chinese briefings since 2022,
36. it appears 5 times: 4 about Japan's prime minister,
37. among the English 30, and Tuesday's answer, which names no one.
38. When a Houston Rockets manager backed Hong Kong's protesters in 2019,
39. the ministry spoke of public opinion and mutual respect, not feelings.
40. Chinese state TV took the NBA off air for about a year.
41. That evening, China's football association used the phrase too.
42. State TV demanded apologies from the league, Real Madrid and Mbappé before any talks.
43. After two came, it said it would listen to their words,
44. and watch their deeds even more.
45. By Tuesday evening in Madrid, we had found no apology of Real Madrid's own.