Three Chinese companies fired the most famous soccer player on Earth on Tuesday. None of them would say what he did, which is the first time I've seen a dairy company plead the Fifth on behalf of a dead chairman.

I've covered a lot of national outrage. This is the first one that couldn't be translated because it might upset the people who were outraged.

Here's what's real, per the BBC, AP, AFP and AS. In a clip circulating online, French captain and Real Madrid forward Kylian Mbappé told the French talk show The Bridge that the meme that makes him laugh the most is one where his face is put on "a Chinese dictator." He didn't name anyone. The meme going around shows his face on an image resembling Mao Zedong. AFP says it couldn't verify the clip. The video is no longer on the show's YouTube channel.

Then the machinery started. Beverage maker Dongpeng, dairy giant Mengniu and cheese maker Milkground all ended their deals with him, each in nearly identical language about words and deeds that "hurt the feelings of the Chinese people." State broadcaster CCTV suspended La Liga matches and pulled ads featuring him, per The Paper. Foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said such words "will naturally be met with opposition from all sectors of Chinese society."

All sectors. Drinks. Milk. Cheese. A government ministry. That's not a backlash, that's a food pyramid.

The Chinese football forum Dongqiudi, which flagged the comments, said the remarks were so offensive "we are unable to translate them." So the public was told it had been insulted, but not how. Some Weibo users, per the BBC, are now asking what exactly he said. That is the most honest question asked in China all week, and I assume someone is already working on its feelings.

Let's review the history, since the BBC did. Mao's Great Leap Forward produced a famine that killed tens of millions. The Cultural Revolution purged intellectuals, artists and party rivals. The Communist Party still treats his legacy as beyond reproach. So the official position is that the man whose policies starved tens of millions is fine, and the guy who laughed at a Photoshop is the problem.

On the sewer scale, I give Beijing four rats out of five. They lose one rat only because they pulled an entire Spanish league off television over a French guy's group chat, which is the most efficient thing a communist government has ever done.

The part that gets me is the dairy. Mengniu says it has "zero tolerance" for hurt feelings. A company that sells milk now has a foreign policy. Your milk has no opinion on anything. Theirs has a dossier.

And somewhere a marketing intern is peeling Mbappé off a bottle of electrolyte drink in an elevator, because the most powerful state on Earth needed his face gone before lunch. A billion people, a nuclear arsenal and the world's largest navy, and the one thing they still can't translate is a joke.

And here's your bill: a gallon of whole milk averaged $4.11 in September, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and at least yours doesn't cancel you over a meme.

This article is satire. The Demorat is a parody news site; real facts are drawn from the linked sources, and jokes, invented scenes, and fictional characters are not real.

The real story that inspired this