I don’t know of this is true, but my headcanon is that the comparisons were originally made with no ill intent. iirc the first ever instance wasn’t even Xi+Obama, but Xi poking out of a sedan’s roof during a military parade, which was juxtaposed to a toy figure of Winnie in a car.
People then joked that these comparisons would be censored, started making them with that in mind and when some egregious ones were deleted, it became a self-fulfilling prophecy. Censorship of (some) comparisons to The Pooh then got exaggerated into censorship of him in general.
Again, I don’t know if this is true and I don’t want to sift through muck online to look into it.
I don’t know of this is true, but my headcanon is that the comparisons were originally made with no ill intent. iirc the first ever instance wasn’t even Xi+Obama, but Xi poking out of a sedan’s roof during a military parade, which was juxtaposed to a toy figure of Winnie in a car.
People then joked that these comparisons would be censored, started making them with that in mind and when some egregious ones were deleted, it became a self-fulfilling prophecy. Censorship of (some) comparisons to The Pooh then got exaggerated into censorship of him in general.
Again, I don’t know if this is true and I don’t want to sift through muck online to look into it.
That seems reasonable