Why Disney’s new Winnie-the-pooh film won’t be seen in China

What possible offence could Winnie-the-pooh cause an entire country, wondered Stefan Kyriazis in the Daily Express. A new live-action Disney film entitled Christopher Robin – starring Ewan Mcgregor as the eponymous protagonist, who in middle age is reunited with his childhood friend Pooh and the other animals of Hundred Acre Wood – has been refused a Chinese release. It’s true there is a quota on foreign movies in China, but the most likely explanation for the decision is the alleged similarity between Pooh and China’s cuddly-looking president, Xi Jinping.

The Chinese state began a crackdown on Pooh last year after bloggers used images of the bear to poke fun at the president. The most notorious juxtaposed a photo of Xi and Barack Obama walking side-by-side with a cartoon image of Pooh taking a stroll with Tigger. The government instigated an online Pooh ban, removing images of the bear from the messaging app Wechat and censoring mentions of his name from the microblogging site Weibo. Then in June, China blocked the HBO network after its talk show host John Oliver mocked Xi’s sensitivity on the subject. “Clamping down on Winnie-the-pooh comparisons doesn’t exactly project strength,” Oliver pointed out. “It suggests a weird insecurity.”

“As silly as it is, the Winnie-the-pooh ban is pretty scary too,” said Emily Stewart on Vox. Earlier this year, Chinese legislators abolished presidential term limits, opening the door for Xi to be president for life. Since then, state censorship has become even fiercer. As well as Pooh, blocked search terms include “my emperor”, “lifelong” and “shameless”. The makers of Christopher Robin will survive the Beijing ban. But it’s yet another “disturbing example of censorship” in China.