HANOI – Vietnam has banned Warner Bros’ highly anticipated film Barbie from domestic distribution over a scene featuring a map that shows China’s unilaterally claimed territory in the South China Sea, state media reported on Monday.

The U-shaped nine-dash line is used on Chinese maps to illustrate its claims over vast areas of the South China Sea, including swathes of what Vietnam considers its continental shelf, where it has awarded oil concessions.

Barbie is the latest movie to be banned in Vietnam for depicting China’s controversial nine-dash line, which was repudiated in an international arbitration ruling by a court in The Hague in 2016. China refuses to recognise the ruling.

In 2019, the Vietnamese government pulled DreamWorks’ animated film, Abominable, and in 2022, it banned Sony’s action movie, Uncharted, for the same reason.

Netflix also removed Australian spy drama Pine Gap in 2021.

Barbie, starring Australian actress Margot Robbie and Canadian actor Ryan Gosling, was originally slated to open in Vietnam on July 21, the same date as in the United States, according to state-run newspaper Tuoi Tre.

“We do not grant licence for the American movie Barbie to release in Vietnam because it contains the offending image of the nine-dash line,” reported the paper, citing Mr Vi Kien Thanh, head of the Department of Cinema, a government body in charge of licensing and censoring foreign films.

Warner Bros did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Vietnam and China have long had overlapping territorial claims to a potentially energy-rich stretch in the South China Sea. The South-east Asian country has repeatedly accused Chinese vessels of violating its sovereignty. REUTERS