In brief
The Philippines has publicly rebuked a Chinese daily’s AI-generated video that ridicules the country by depicting it as a monkey backed by the U.S. and Japan. The clip, posted on July 10, featured an animated monkey in a Filipino shirt shamed for singing the wrong country’s anthem and then attacked with a water cannon. Manila’s foreign ministry demanded the clip’s removal, while the defence ministry called the stunt contemptible propaganda. The incident comes as Beijing and Manila grow increasingly hostile over disputed waters around the Spratly Islands and Scarborough Shoal.
The Philippines’ foreign ministry declared the Chinese Daily’s animated clip “dehumanising and racist”, condemning the depiction of its people as a timid monkey forced to perform by the U.S. and Japan to confront Beijing over the South China Sea.
Posted on July 10, the video shows a monkey wearing a Filipino shirt screaming as arms holding Japanese and U.S. flags push it onto a shaky karaoke stage on a boat. After disparaging it for singing the wrong anthem, the monkey pulls out a sheet reading “South China Sea arbitration award” and is then flung into the sea with a water cannon.
Tense stand‑offs between Philippine and Chinese vessels in the disputed waters have surged, with the Chinese Coast Guard routinely firing high‑pressure water cannons at Philippine ships, causing damage and injuries.
Philippine officials cited the clip as “contemptible propaganda” that exposes the “moral and intellectual bankruptcy of China’s propaganda machine”, warning that misinformation only widens distrust between the two countries.
The video remains on China Daily’s Facebook page, even as Beijing has dismissed the 2016 arbitration award from The Hague as lacking jurisdiction. Over the past week Manila highlighted its decade‑long victory in that ruling, while Beijing’s crews have continued to block Philippine access to the Scarborough Shoal and deny Chinese officials entry to mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau.
