Kylian Mbappé, French footballer, described a meme that placed his face on images of Mao Zedong as the one that made him laugh most. He called Mao a Chinese dictator. Chinese companies cut commercial ties. The foreign ministry declared that words hurting the feelings of the Chinese people would face unanimous opposition. Mbappé issued a grovelling apology expressing deep respect for the Chinese people and their history. Football team, La Liga and its president, followed with their own apologies for the distress caused.
This is not an isolated incident. It is the routine pattern. Western brands, sports leagues, entertainers and institutions scramble to perform what the Spectator rightly calls self-rectifications whenever Beijing signals offence. Marriott, Zara, Gap, Nike and others have rewritten marketing or issued statements to avoid sanctions. Arsenal distanced itself from Mesut Özil's criticism of the repression of Uighurs. The NBA retreated after Daryl Morey's "Fight for Freedom. Stand with Hong Kong" tweet. John Cena, after referring to Taiwan as a country, released a video declaring he had made a mistake, that he was very sorry, and that he loved and respected China and the Chinese people. Each episode protects access to the Chinese market.
The object of protection is not an ordinary trading partner. Mao was responsible for the deaths of tens of millions through the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution and successive purges. Deng Xiaoping later judged him 70 per cent right and 30 per cent wrong, describing the mass deaths as excessive enthusiasm. Under Xi Jinping the official line has hardened further, with Maoist nostalgia and the Long March invoked as models for the present. Criticism of the founder remains especially sensitive. The same regime that demands silence on Mao also demands silence on Xinjiang, Hong Kong and Taiwan. "Hurting the feelings of the Chinese people" functions as a standing charge against any deviation from the party's narrative.
The mechanism is commercial dependence. China is a large consumer market and a major production base. Companies and individuals calculate that the cost of an apology is lower than the cost of lost sales or market access. The calculation is short-term and self-defeating. Each public kowtow advertises Beijing's leverage and normalises the idea that historical facts and political realities are negotiable if the commercial stakes are high enough. It also draws more attention to the issues the regime prefers to keep quiet. The result is not stability but a demonstration of how easily external actors can be made to enforce the party's speech rules.
There is no strategic necessity for this. The same governments and companies that adjust language to avoid Chinese displeasure routinely criticise other states for far smaller offences. Dependence is a choice that can be reduced. Diversifying markets, accepting short-term commercial friction, and treating the Chinese Communist Party's historical and territorial claims as open to ordinary scrutiny would shrink Beijing's coercive reach. The alternative, continued public deference, transfers the power to set the boundaries of acceptable speech to a one-party state whose founding figure killed tens of millions and whose current leadership still treats that record as largely off-limits.
The world bows to Beijing because the short-term price of not bowing looks higher. It should stop because the longer-term price of continued submission is the gradual acceptance of the party's version of history and politics as the price of doing business. That is not a commercial bargain. It is a political one of surrender.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2026/10/why-the-world-bows-to-beijing/