Vietnam bans 'Barbie' movie over South China Sea map

Warner Bros' "Barbie" movie has been banned successful Vietnam, according to the country's state media, aft featuring a representation which contained Beijing's unilaterally claimed territory successful the South China Sea.

The American live-action movie reportedly features a country with a representation showing the "nine-dash line." This is utilized connected Chinese maps to exemplify its claims to ample parts of the South China Sea. Vietnam is conscionable 1 of galore nations that contention those claims.

The territory quality was brought to an planetary tribunal successful The Hague successful 2016, and resulted successful a rejection of China's claims to the bulk of the South China Sea. But Beijing did not judge the judgement. The South China Sea is simply a captious commercialized way connecting the main arteries of commercialized successful Southeast Asia.

"Barbie" was acceptable to deed Vietnamese cinemas connected July 21, the aforesaid time arsenic its American debut, but the prohibition has caused movie theaters to region the diagnostic from lists of upcoming films, according to authorities paper Tuổi Trẻ.

The prohibition was confirmed to the paper by Vi Kien Thanh, caput of the Vietnam Cinema Department. CNBC was incapable to independently verify the report.

"Barbie" is not the archetypal movie to beryllium banned successful Vietnam for including imagery of a representation showing the "nine-dash line." The 2022 Tom Holland filmed "Unchartered" was barred past twelvemonth for the aforesaid reason, arsenic was the 2019 DreamWorks movie "Abominable."