Philippines protests Chinese state media’s ‘racist’ video depicting Filipinos as monkeys

A Philippine flag on Saturday, Nov. 9, 2013. (AP / Aaron Favila)

MANILA - The Philippines condemned as racist a video posted by the state-run China Daily depicting Filipinos as monkeys, saying on Friday it had lodged a diplomatic protest with Beijing over the “offensive, distressing and unacceptable” imagery.

Manila has demanded the removal of the video, which it called “contemptible propaganda”, with the foreign ministry saying that “disagreement over legal and political issues does not justify resorting to imagery that has no place in the public discourse of responsible states.”

The AI-generated video on the China Daily’s Facebook account shows a monkey dressed in Filipino attire being directed on what to sing by arms representing the U.S. and Japan. After being called “stupid,” the monkey grabs a sheet of lyrics bearing the words “South China Sea arbitration award” before being thrown into the sea and blasted by a vessel’s water cannon.

China’s foreign ministry said on Friday the video did not represent China officially and that it had no comment on it.

The video was posted on July 10, coinciding with Philippine events marking the 10th anniversary of a landmark arbitral ruling that invalidated China’s sweeping claims in the South China Sea. Beijing rejects the ruling.

“The recent spate of schizophrenic behaviour of the Chinese Communist Party is too clear to disregard or to ignore. This latest act of dehumanization further reveals them as neither a secure and confident actor nor a trustworthy neighbour,” Philippine Defence Secretary Gilberto Teodoro said in a statement.

He said it exposed “the weakness of a government that resorts to racism, threats, and manufactured hatred because it has utterly failed to defend its ridiculous claims through reason, evidence, or law.”

Manila’s sharp rebukes come at a time when relations between the Philippines and China are already strained by South China Sea tensions, including repeated confrontations at sea, aggressive maneuvers by Chinese vessels, Beijing imposing sanctions on Teodoro, and more recently over a floating barrier installed by China at the entrance of the hotly contested Scarborough Shoal that was later removed after Philippine protests.

Chinese defence ministry spokesperson Jiang Bin said on Friday that the 2016 arbitral ruling was a “political farce masqueraded as a legal process, and the so-called award carries no legal force in any sense.”

Reporting by Karen Lema and Nestor Corrales; Additional reporting by Beijing newsroom Editing by Stephen Coates and John Mair