OAN’s Brooke Mallory
1:51 PM – Wednesday, July 5, 2023
Texas Senator Ted Cruz unleashed pent-up frustrations on the upcoming “Barbie” film, which is set to be released on July 21st, for including what he and his office referred to as “Chinese communist propaganda.”
The film, starring Australian actress Margot Robbie and Canadian actor Ryan Gosling, drew criticism for its pro-China depiction of islands in the South China Sea that have been contested by both Vietnam and China and have been the focus of two separate military battles in 1974 and 1988.
A United Nations (UN) court concluded in 2016 that China’s claim to the areas was unfounded under international law.
The movie’s showing has been prohibited in Vietnam since it reportedly includes a map which shows that the “nine-dash line,” a long-used geographical symbol indicating certain regions, including the Paracel and Spratly Islands, is controlled by China.
Cruz continued his criticism of the film’s pro-China stance on Monday, tweeting, “I guess Barbie is made in China…”
“China wants to control what Americans see, hear, and ultimately think, and they leverage their massive film markets to coerce American companies into pushing [Chinese Communist Party] propaganda—just like the way the ‘Barbie’ film seems to have done with the map,” a representative for Cruz told the press.
For a number of years, nations such as the United Kingdom, France, and Australia have contested China’s claims to the region as well as the country’s forceful policies.
“[China] has built artificial islands in the South China Sea, harassed foreign naval and military aircraft passing through the region, intimidated Vietnamese and other foreign fishermen, asserted rights to explore and exploit maritime oil and gas reserves, and continued to publish maps depicting the nine-dash line claim,” wrote Donald Rothwell, an international law professor at the Australian National University.
Other countries, including Taiwan, the Philippines, Brunei, and Malaysia, have staked claims in the energy-rich corridor.
“This is why any legitimacy given to the nine-dash line, even in Hollywood movies, is so sensitive,” Rothwell continued.
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