Vietnam has banned the upcoming “Barbie” movie from playing in its theaters over a scene that displays a map showing China’s contested territory in the South China Sea.

What You Need To Know

  • Vietnam has banned the movie “Barbie” from playing in its theaters over a scene that displays a map showing China’s contested territory in the South China Sea

  • The Chinese government uses what's known as the nine-dash line to show its territorial claims in the South China Sea, an area that Vietnam and other countries also contest

  • In 2016, the Permanent Court of Arbitration, an international body based in The Hague, Netherlands, ruled China had “no legal basis” to claim historic rights to the region under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea; China does not recognize the ruling

  • The highly anticipated Greta Gerwig-directed “Barbie” film, starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, was set to release in Vietnam on July 21, the same date it was set to bow in the United States

The Chinese government uses what's known as the nine-dash line to show its territorial claims in the South China Sea, an area that Vietnam and other countries also contest.

“We do not grant license for the American movie ‘Barbie’ to release in Vietnam because it contains the offending image of the nine-dash line,” Vi Kien Thanh, director general of the Vietnam Ceinema Department, said Monday, per state-run newspaper Tuoi Tre.

In 2016, the Permanent Court of Arbitration, an international body based in The Hague, Netherlands, ruled China had “no legal basis” to claim historic rights to the region under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. China does not recognize the ruling.

The South China Sea is a contested area with overlapping territorial claims by China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan.

“Barbie” isn’t the only movie that has been banned from playing in Vietnam. In 2022, Sony’s movie “Uncharted” met the same fate when the Vietnamese government banned it over a scene showing South China’s Sea map. The Australian spy series “Pine Gap” was removed from Netflix in the country for the same reason in 2021.

The highly anticipated Greta Gerwig-directed “Barbie” film, starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, was set to release in Vietnam on July 21, the same date it was set to bow in the United States.

Warner Bros. has not yet commented on the decision.