Every Time Hollywood Messed Up and Displayed China's Illegal Nine-Dash Line on Screen
Let’s get one thing straight: China’s nine-dash line is illegal. No matter how much propaganda has leaked into world maps and Hollywood movies, it doesn’t change the fact that The Law of the Sea is the only law that reigns in the open water.
Quick recap: China’s nine-dash line illegally claims all the territorial waters found within the infamous long line that circles south and extends all the way to Brunei. China claims this is its “historical” territorial waters, despite the fact that the claim is in direct violation of The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). In 2016, the arbitral tribunal of the Philippines v. China case set matters straight: China’s nine-dash line is invalid.
By overlapping the exclusive economic zones of five Southeast Asian nations, China’s nine-dash line has pissed off: the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Brunei. So much so that some movies pushing the nine-dash line propaganda are being banned altogether in this corner of the world.
The U.S. might have a tense relationship with China, but it certainly hasn’t stopped Hollywood from catering to its huge money-making audience in the PRC. And what better way to cash in on the Chinese box office than subtly displaying the nine-dash line on the big screen.
Here are all the times the nine-dash line made controversial appearances in Hollywood or non-Chinese movies, and were subsequently banned or censored by the countries that vehemently reject Beijing’s maritime expansionism.
1| Abominable (2019)
This seemingly harmless DreamWorks film caught our eye, and not in a good way. The children’s animated film made headlines in Southeast Asia for a split-second scene that displayed the nine-dash line on a world map. The nine-dash line is rarely even used outside of China but somehow made its way into this animated film about a yeti.
The movie was produced by Shanghai-based Pearl Studio along with DreamWorks Animation. With DreamWorks’ reputation, the appearance of the nine-dash line was a shock, but even the innocent story of a yeti finding its way home couldn’t appease the national movie councils of Vietnam, Malaysia, and the Philippines. Despite requests to remove the scene from the movie, the studios wouldn’t budge, causing the three nations to ban the movie altogether from screening in their respective nations.
2| Pine Gap (2021)
While not a Hollywood film or even that popular in the Philippines, this Australian show caught the unwelcome attention of the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board and the Department of Foreign Affairs of the Philippines. Select episodes of the Australian spy show displayed China’s nine-dash line to the disapproval of Southeast Asian viewers. The MTRCB and DFA ordered Netflix to take down select episodes in the Philippines, while their Vietnamese counterparts ordered Netflix to remove the series altogether in Vietnam.
“The portrayal of the illegal nine-dash line in Pine Gap is no accident as it was consciously designed and calculated to specifically convey a message that China’s nine-dash line legitimately exists,” said the MTRCB.
“Using the medium of a motion picture is but China’s unconventional approach to gain an upper hand in the territorial conflict in the South China Sea/West Philippine Sea,” said the DFA.
3| Uncharted (2022)
If you haven’t watched this blockbuster yet, then spoiler warning. The movie takes Tom Holland and Mark Wahlberg’s characters all the way to the Philippines during their globetrotting treasure hunt. But on the way to the Philippines, the film cuts to an image of their plane flying over the South China Sea—featuring the illegal nine-dash line. The Philippines could almost forgive the movie for the mishap since much of the movie’s plot takes place in Mindanao, but it looks like Vietnam wasn’t so forgiving. The blatant display of the nine-dash line had Vietnam’s movie council in an uproar, causing them to outright ban the film from screening in the country.
"The film was banned from distribution after we watched it and found it contained an illegal image of the infamous nine-dash line,” said Vi Kien Thanh, head of Vietnam’s Department of Cinema.
Infamous, indeed.
Bonus: Crazy Rich Asians (2018)
Blink and you’ll miss it. A second-long clip was cut from Crazy Rich Asians screenings in Vietnam after it showed the South China Sea’s islands under Beijing’s control. The controversial map was displayed on an expensive designer bag of all things. While the nine-dash line didn’t actually appear on the bag, the Vietnamese censorship council claimed that a number of their islands were incorrectly shown under Beijing control.
You’ll have to have eagle eyes to spot it, which the council clearly has when their sovereignty is in question.
