| Welcome back to The World Weekly, where we deconstruct some of the biggest international news stories from the week and place the seemingly local developments in global context. If art imitates life, it too can stir up controversy. A scene in the Barbie film has aggravated a long-standing geopolitical dispute over the South China Sea. Here’s what you need to know  Australian actress Margot Robbie (centre) meets fans during a pink carpet event to promote her new film "Barbie" in Seoul. (AFP) The disputed South China Sea in the Barbie world First, Vietnam banned Warner Bros' new Barbie movie. Now Philippines is considering it. The reason? A map in the background of one of the scenes allegedly shows the controversial nine-dash line, which marks China's territorial claims in the South China Sea. Parts of the sea and various island groups are hotly contested between China and several other Asian countries making it a controversial geopolitical issue (An overview of some of the claims on a map) While Vietnam has not specified which scene it objects to, netizens have narrowed it down to scene which is also in the trailer. In the scene, as Barbie (played by Margot Robbie) talks to another character, viewers can briefly see behind her part of a map labelled Asia with some dashes around it. (You can see it for yourself here at the 1.01-mark or scroll down for the image). To be sure, the map is nothing like the real map of Asia and eagled-eyed observers say there are eight dashes, not nine. An article on the American news website Salon said, according to people familiar with the matter, the scene involves Weird Barbie (played by Kate McKinnon) giving Barbie (Robbie) the map as she encourages her to go on a journey of self-discovery. The dashes, therefore, are "journey lines" and do not represent any real-world geography. But these explanations may have come too late for Vietnam. “We do not grant license for the American movie ‘Barbie’ to release in Vietnam, because it contains the offending image of the nine-dash line,” Vi Kien Thanh, head of the country’s cinema department, told the state-run Tuoi Tre newspaper on Monday. In Philippines, Senator Francis Tolentino, vice-chairman of the Senate foreign relations committee, said, "If the invalidated nine-dash line was indeed depicted in the movie 'Barbie,' then it is incumbent upon the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB) to ban the same as it denigrates Philippine sovereignty." He also suggested editing out the scene, while others recommended a disclaimer, rather than an outright ban. “The movie is fiction, and so is the nine-dash line,” Philippine Sen. Risa Hontiveros said on Tuesday. “At the minimum, our cinemas should include an explicit disclaimer that the nine-dash line is a figment of China’s imagination.” The MTRCB is currently considering what to do. The movie, directed by Greta Gerwig and also starring Ryan Gosling as Ken, is set to release on July 21. In another such situation, organisers behind a concert of the K-pop group Blackpink apologised to Vietnam on Friday after the nine-dash line was spotted on a map on their website. Vietnam's foreign ministry spokesperson Pham Thu Hang said that the "promotion and usage of products or publications featuring the 'nine-dash line' in Vietnam is a violation of Vietnam's laws and is unacceptable". This is not the first time a production has gotten into trouble over the nine-dash line. In 2019, a number of East Asian countries objected to a scene in DreamWorks's film Abominable. Something similar happened last year with Sony Pictures's Uncharted, starring Tom Holland and Mark Wahlberg, and in 2021 with the Pine Gap, Netflix's six-episode spy thriller. The fact that in each of these movies the nine-dash line only appears on-screen for a couple of seconds demonstrates the heightened sensitivity around the issue. This is made worse in light of China's increasing naval capabilities, soft power influence, and aggression in the region. What does that mean? Let's discuss.  A screengrab of what is suspected to be the offending scene that appears at 1:01-mark in the official Barbie trailer. (Warner Bros. Pictures/ Youtube) A regional dispute The South China Sea is an archipelago between mainland China and the Pacific Ocean. The nine-dash line, or at various times the ten- or eleven-dash line, was articulated as early as 1947 by the Nationalist government of the Republic of China — predating the current People's Republic of China (1949). The U-shape encircles nearly 90% of the South China Sea, altogether approximately 2,000,000 km2 of maritime space and 13km2 of land area (excluding Taiwan and Pratas Islands). Within that area, the dispute between China, Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia and Philippines extends over more than 200 tiny islands and reefs. In May 2009, China submitted a map to the United Nations Commission on the limits of the Continental shelf with the nine-dash line claiming China's "indisputable sovereignty over the islands in the South China Sea and adjacent waters". But beyond the claim of sovereignty, Beijing has offered no fixed geographical coordinates or articulated what the lines mean. For instance, one question experts ask is does China claim everything within the lines, or just the resources? This poses a problem. Under international law, coordinates or baselines have to be provided to assess the maritime claims. Since 2013, when Xi Jinping became president, China has taken a more aggressive approach to maintaining its claims in the Sea. It has established Air Defence Identification Zones (ADIZ), carried out extensive reclamation work by building artificial islands, harassed foreign naval and military aircraft as well as foreign fishermen passing through the region, and continually asserted its rights to explore and exploit maritime oil and gas reserves. For instance, on Thursday, the US expressed concern over China’s recent behavior towards Philippine vessels in the South China Sea, with defense secretary Lloyd Austin calling Beijing’s move “coercive and risky,” Bloomberg reported. In 2016, Philippines took a dispute over Chinese claims in the sea to an international tribunal in The Hague. The Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) found that China’s claims of historic rights within the nine-dash line were without legal foundation. Beijing has yet to recognise the ruling. But what makes the sea so hotly contested? Beijing views the control of the Sea as essential to its security. Since the Strait of Malacca presents a chokepoint that can be blockaded by China's adversaries, control of the Sea, amid increasingly close relations between the US and countries in the region, is an existential issue. Furthermore, as Bonji Ohara, a senior fellow at the Tokyo-based Sasakawa Peace Foundation, told the Anadolu Agency, "The South China Sea is important for the strategic patrol of Chinese SSBN [nuclear ballistic missile submarine], which needs to enter west Pacific Ocean for its nuclear deterrence against the US." The Sea will also serve as a buffer zone should there be an all-out. That ties in with Beijing's intention to one day retake the island of Taiwan, by force if need be. The South China Sea also accounts for at least a third of the global maritime trade. While huge oil and natural gas reserves are said to lie beneath its seabed, it is also a fishing ground crucial for food security, Anadolu said. These are important considerations for resource-hungry Beijing — or any country for that matter. They are also the reasons behind the expanding claims by several countries in the region and Washington's increasing involvement in the issues around it. Building support for a rules-based approach to the maritime domain in the South China Sea and the East China Sea are among the key aims, the White House said, while elaborating the US Indo-Pacific strategy.  The Chinese Coast Guard ship (right) blocked a Philippine patrol vessel steaming into a disputed Ayungin Shoal in the South China Sea that led to a frightening near-collision witnessed by journalists in April. (AP) China and Hollywood In a statement on Thursday, Warner Bros said, “The map in Barbie Land is a whimsical, child-like crayon drawing." “The doodles depict Barbie’s make-believe journey from Barbie Land to the real world. It was not intended to make any type of statement.” But some say the studio has deliberately kept the map vague to allow some plausible deniability, while also keeping China happy. Asked about the issue at a daily briefing on Tuesday, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said, “China’s position on the South China Sea issue is clear and consistent.” “We believe that the countries concerned should not link the South China Sea issue with normal cultural and people-to-people exchanges,” Mao said. Among Chinese citizens, the controversy has made the Barbie movie a "must see," for patriotic reasons, according to The China Project. This is a big deal for Warner Bros. In 2020, China became the biggest box office in the world. And for Hollywood, which has demonstrated a long-tradition of abiding by Beijing's sensitivities, "the vast Chinese market and the potential for greater profits," are the end-game, Wendy Su, an associate professor of media and cultural studies at UC Riverside and the author of China’s Encounter With Global Hollywood, told The Atlantic. The phenomenon is so well-known that that earlier this year, Washington updated the defence bill to prohibit the US government funding any projects that seek “pre-approval of the content” from the Chinese government, or modify or delete the content of the project "as a result of any direction from any entity of China’s government or its Communist party." On the other hand, companies and people (remember when John Cena apologised to Mandarin for calling Taiwan a country) who contradict Beijing's claims are caught in the middle, potentially facing a severe backlash from Chinese customers and protests from the Chinese government. That's all for this week, folx. If you have any suggestions, feedback, or questions, please write to me at sanya.mathur@hindustantimes.com | 
