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

There's no racial component to it at all

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

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."

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.