China, Focusing Idol Worship on Xi Jinping, Pressures Gold-Medal Olympian to Shut Down Fan Club

One of China’s most successful and popular Olympians, two-time gold medalist swimmer Pan Zhanle, shut down his official fan page on the regime-controlled Weibo social media site this week, prompting loud applause from state media for taking a stand against “toxic fan culture.”

The state-run propaganda newspaper Global Times lamented on Tuesday that allowing fans of prominent personalities to maintain social groups and celebrate their favorites could lead to “excessive idol worship, irrational support, and even online violence.” The Times published multiple articles praising Pan for shutting down his Weibo fan page, indicating the Chinese government viewed his decision favorably.

The move comes in the context of the Communist Party essentially declaring war on what it calls “fan culture” – the elevation of celebrities in the public consciousness, which could potentially distract from obsessive worship of the Communist Party and, in particular, genocidal dictator Xi Jinping. The Chinese government, through its media arms, has for years railed against fan clubs for Korean pop stars, athletes, movie stars, and other non-political entities – creating a context that pressures famous Chinese people such as Pan to ensure that they do not become the target of such attention.

This war on fan culture never addresses the government’s fabricated cult of personality around Xi, fueled through the mandated study of “Xi Jinping Thought” in schools, government efforts to Christians to replace crosses in their homes with photos of Xi, and drowning out the memory of past Communist leaders, such as Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping, with Xi Jinping propaganda at events marking historic dates. The hero worship of Xi promoted by the Communist Party is so pervasive that, in 2021, the Chinese car company SAIC debuted a vehicle equipped with an application that reads “Xi Jinping Thought” messages to passengers as they drive.

Pan, 20, became one of China’s most popular athletes at the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics this month earning two gold medals, one by winning the men’s 100-meter freestyle race at world-record speed. Pan broke his own world record to win the race. China’s swimming performance at the Olympics was marred by controversy after months of reports in the New York Times revealed that nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers tested positive for banned substances but were allowed to compete in the 2021 Tokyo Summer Olympics – and several of those were allowed to return to Paris. Pan, who would have been 17 at the time of the Tokyo Olympics, was not named among the implicated athletes, but his world-record swim prompted widespread speculation among swimming professionals in the West that he came about his time unfairly. […]

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