CHINA Pro-Beijing South China Sea map, Hanoi bans ‘Barbie’ movie

In one scene, the maritime territories appear within the so-called nine-point line, the border imposed by China arbitrarily and unilaterally. It is not the first time that local authorities, who claim large areas of the region, prevent the broadcast of international productions. But Hollywood wants to increase its share of revenue from the Chinese market.

Hanoi ( / Agencies) – The Vietnamese authorities have banned the distribution of the Warner Bros. film “Barbie” because in one scene the South China Sea appears under the total control of China, while some southeastern countries Asian claim many areas of the region.

In the film, directed by filmmaker Greta Gerwig, a map appears at one point showing the so-called “nine-point line,” the name given to the demarcation line that Beijing unilaterally imposed around much of the rich maritime territories. in natural resources of what is now commonly known as the South China Sea. Also included are areas that house oil concessions awarded to Vietnam – which calls its territorial waters the “East Sea” – and regions claimed by the Philippines – which, instead, calls the area the “West Philippine Sea”. Both Hanoi and Manila regularly accuse Chinese ships of violating their sovereignty over territorial waters.

An international arbitration ruling issued in 2016 by a court in The Hague declared Beijing’s claims without legal effect, a verdict that China and Taiwan have always rejected.

It is not the first time that Vietnam has banned the dissemination of international cinematographic works due to the dispute over the South China Sea. In 2019 it had happened with the DreamWorks animated film “Little Yeti”, while last year Hanoi banned the Sony film “Uncharted”. For the same reasons, in 2021 Netflix was forced to withdraw the Australian series ‘Pine Gap’ from the Vietnamese market.

International film production companies are increasingly adapting their works to Beijing’s demands to avoid being left out of the Chinese market, which, according to 2022 figures, is already equivalent to the American one, with some 11,000 million dollars in sales. Now Hollywood is trying to boost its revenue from China by another billion, after Beijing this year lifted the ban it imposed on Marvel and Disney movies three years ago.

According to experts, China has wanted to favor domestic film production in recent years after Chinese box office sales for the first time in the first quarter of the year surpassed those of the United States in 2018. And, meanwhile, the censorship of products foreigners continued to be meticulously applied: entire scenes of Hollywood movies in which China or the Chinese were portrayed negatively were cut or removed even in recent years.

Last summer, the movie “Top Gun: Maverick”, produced by Paramount Pictures, did not pass the controls of the Council of State, the main administrative body of the People’s Republic. In the trailer, a patch on Tom Cruise’s jacket that in the 1986 first film featured the flags of Taiwan and Japan had been altered with facsimiles, likely in an attempt to prevent its distribution from being banned in China, which claims Taiwan as own province. But in the final cut, the original flags reappeared, a decision that was certainly not welcomed by Beijing.