Philippines condemns monkey video on Chinese media as racist
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- The Philippines' foreign ministry condemned a China Daily AI-generated video depicting the country as a timid monkey shoved onto a rickety karaoke stage set up in a boat by arms bearing the US and Japanese flags, calling the portrayal "dehumanising and racist" and demanding the clip be removed.
- The video, posted on July 10, mocks the 10-year anniversary of the Permanent Court of Arbitration ruling in The Hague that concluded China's expansive South China Sea claims had no legal basis — the monkey pulls out a sheet reading "South China Sea arbitration award" before being flung into the sea and blasted by a water cannon.
- Defence Secretary Gilbert Teodoro called the clip "contemptible propaganda" that "exposes the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of China's propaganda machine," and China barred him and his immediate family from entering mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau in June.
- The clip remained on China Daily's Facebook page at time of writing despite Manila's formal removal demand, and Chinese authorities did not respond to the Philippines' rebuke.
- China Daily's caption accused the Philippines of clinging to "external forces" and turning itself into "a pawn in someone else's geopolitical game," and the monkey clip is one of several recent Facebook posts mocking Manila alongside depictions as a clown and a snake.
Why it matters: Manila's formal demand for the video's removal — which China Daily has not complied with — turns an AI-generated propaganda spat into a diplomatic incident running alongside active maritime confrontations at Scarborough Shoal and the Spratly Islands, where the Chinese Coast Guard routinely uses water cannons on Philippine vessels. The information-warfare dimension, layered onto Teodoro's travel ban and a June floating barrier at Scarborough Shoal, widens the dispute on the Hague ruling's 10th anniversary.
