they're concern trolling

i wonder why western redditors found a depiction of an asian president as a fat yellow bear and a black president as a character called Tigger so funny 🤔 definitely no racism here, no sir

Wow, look at this racism denial from the same person who was criticizing Tankies for genocide denial.

"The meme was started by a Chinese person, therefore it can't be racist" is just a new veneer on "black rappers use the n-word in music, therefore it's not racist if I use it."

There's no racial component to it at all

That's a pretty bold statement to make. Have you seen the west?

the Chinese government decided to crack down on it hard

Deleting some memes from Weibo isn't a "hard" crackdown, westerners just want to pretend it is and for some reason still care ten years later.

Have you considered that the meme might have different impact coming from a Chinese person ribbing their leader than a white westerner echoing it? The former might be "light ribbing" but the later is racist. Who says a thing matters significantly on whether its ok to say. You know this very well because I'd hope you'd know that its not ok for white people to use the soft r n word even though many black people use it.