MANILA – The Philippine Foreign Ministry has invoked the strongest diplomatic language it uses in dealing with China, calling on the state-run China Daily newspaper in Beijing to remove an artificial intelligence-generated video depicting Filipinos as monkeys being directed by the United States and Japan, thrown into the sea, and blown up with water cannons. The request arrived on Thursday, three days after the clip appeared on the China Daily Facebook page, with a timing that Manila described as deliberate: the upload date coincided with the 10th anniversary of the international court ruling that Beijing refused to accept.
The video, a 58-second computer-generated animation uploaded on July 10, depicts a monkey dressed in Filipino clothing at a karaoke stage on a boat. The arms extending from the figures holding the American and Japanese flags nudge the animal and direct it on what to do. When he was reprimanded for singing the wrong song, the monkey took out a piece of paper bearing the words “South China Sea Arbitration Decision.” He is then thrown into the sea and blown up with a water cannon from a passing ship.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in its official statement, Thursday, that “the disagreement over legal and political issues does not justify resorting to disturbing images, which have no place in the civil public discourse of a responsible state.” “Such images and misinformation only serve to widen the mistrust between the Philippines and China,” he added.
The July 10 download selection was selected. A decade ago, on that date, the Permanent Court of Arbitration issued its ruling in Philippines v. China, finding that Beijing’s blanket claim to the nine lines over most of the South China Sea had no valid basis under international law. China declared the resolution null and void on the day it was issued, never changed its naval behavior in response, and on the anniversary uploaded this animation. The video remained on China Daily’s Facebook page as of Thursday.
Defense Minister Gilberto Teodoro was much less sober than the State Department. He described the clip as “despicable propaganda” that “exposes the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of the Chinese propaganda machine”, and linked it to what he described as “the latest wave of schizophrenic behavior by the Chinese Communist Party”. The Defense Secretary’s language marked a shift from diplomatic complaint to direct public characterization of Chinese political behavior, an unusual position for a Cabinet official to take on record.
The visual choices in the video are inspired by documented incidents. Chinese Coast Guard vessels used water cannons against Philippine supply boats approaching disputed areas in the South China Sea; The animated weapon at the end of the clip reflects equipment deployed in real confrontations. The portrayal of Manila as a creature manipulated by Washington and Tokyo reflects a propaganda line maintained by Chinese state media for years, framing Philippine regionalism not as a sovereign policy but as proxy behavior directed by external forces. What is changing here is the transformation of the Filipinos from a competing government into a mere active animal.
Beijing did not respond to Manila’s request. The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs has always treated the South China Sea statements as attempts to internationalize a dispute that it considers settled in favor of China. Official framing of Xinhua On the 10th anniversary of the Permanent Court of Arbitration ruling, he described the ruling as a politically motivated “farce” without legal basis, a position that the Chinese government has maintained since 2016 and which this video translates into an animation.
Under President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the Philippines chose to deal with the South China Sea incidents openly rather than through back channels, releasing footage of Chinese forces using lasers and water cannons against Philippine ships, and expanding defense arrangements with the United States, Australia, and Japan. This situation did not change access to Philippine fishing grounds. Filipino fishermen from Masinloc remain deprived of Scarborough Shoal a decade after a ruling affirmed their right to those waters. However, it has created a diplomatic environment in which propaganda video of this kind serves as escalation rather than background noise.
China Daily is published in English and targets international readers. The clip is therefore not directed at a domestic Chinese audience, but rather at the wider world, and the images it presents are its argument: the Philippines’ legal position is an offer made to advance an American and Japanese interest, not a sovereign territorial claim. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs described these images as racist and demanded their removal. Whether Beijing treats the request as worthy of a response will indicate how it weighs the propaganda value of the video against the diplomatic cost of the challenge, and whether it is concerned that content of this kind complicates China’s recent gains in global opinion polls by providing its critics with evidence of the behavior they have accused it of.
As of Thursday evening, the video remained on the China Daily Facebook page and no Chinese government official had commented publicly. Manila did not announce steps beyond the removal request. What happens next remains, like the arbitration ruling itself, an unanswered question that Beijing has chosen to present.
