The Philippines has formally protested a China Daily video that depicted Filipinos as monkeys and sought its removal. The row has sharpened already fraught South China Sea tensions and revived the battle over the 2016 arbitration ruling.
The Philippine government has lodged a strong protest with China over an editorial video circulated by Chinese state-owned media outlet China Daily, saying it depicted Filipinos as monkeys and demanding that it be taken down. Manila said the material was offensive and went beyond political debate, while Beijing said the video did not represent the Chinese government’s official position.
The dispute centres on China’s rejection of a 2016 arbitration ruling that struck down its sweeping claims in the South China Sea. The Philippines has marked the ruling’s anniversary as a landmark victory for the rule of law, even as tensions in the disputed waters have risen in recent years.
The Department of Foreign Affairs in Manila said on Friday that a series of opinion and editorial videos and cartoons, especially an animated video posted by China Daily on Facebook on July 10, focused on Beijing’s rejection of the arbitration ruling. The Philippines had initiated the arbitration in 2013 after China seized a shoal west of the Philippines following a tense standoff. China questioned the tribunal’s jurisdiction in The Hague, refused to take part in the proceedings and dismissed the ruling as a sham.
According to the Philippines, the China Daily video showed a monkey holding a piece of paper marked “South China Sea arbitration Award” and wearing what appeared to be a traditional Philippine shirt, a rural hat and tattered trousers. It said two hands with sleeves marked “USA” and “Japan” then hurled the monkey into the sea, where it was blasted away by a water cannon from what looked like a Chinese coast guard ship.
The video’s caption mocked the arbitration ruling, saying it was not a remedy for peace “but a source of confrontation dressed up as law”. It also said that “by clinging to external forces and stirring up trouble in the South China Sea,” Philippine politicians “are turning their country into a pawn in someone else’s geopolitical game.”
Manila said it first conveyed its “firm objection to the offensive content” to Chinese Ambassador Jing Quan in Manila on Thursday. The Foreign Affairs Department said Philippine Foreign Undersecretary Leo Herrera-Lim “demanded that the materials be taken down, stressing that such content is inconsistent with the mutual respect expected between states”. In its protest, the department said that “China Daily went beyond legitimate political debate by resorting to demeaning, dehumanising, and racist depictions of Filipinos” and added that “disagreement over legal and political issues does not justify resorting to imagery that has no place in the public discourse of responsible states.” It also said the Philippine Embassy in Beijing had sent a letter to the China Daily editor-in-chief, repeating Manila’s demand for the immediate takedown of the material.
In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said on Friday that the video “does not represent the official position and I have no comment on it”. But he also said China viewed the South China Sea arbitration as “a political farce disguised as a legal proceeding” and added that “the so-called award is illegal, null and void and has no binding force.”
The United States, the United Kingdom, more than a dozen other Western and Asian countries, and the 27-member European Union have reaffirmed the 2016 ruling. The long-running disputes in the South China Sea, a key global trade route, also involve Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan, and confrontations at sea have become more frequent in recent years, especially involving Chinese, Philippine and Vietnamese forces and fishing fleets. The latest protest reflects how the arbitration ruling and competing claims in the South China Sea remain at the centre of tensions between Manila and Beijing.
With PTI Inputs
