Philippines protests China Daily video it calls racist

The Philippines lodged a diplomatic protest with Beijing on Friday over a China Daily video that Manila described as racist for portraying the Philippines as a cartoon monkey.

The foreign department said Foreign Undersecretary Leo Herrera-Lim first raised the Philippines' objection in a meeting on Thursday with Chinese ambassador to Manila Jing Quan. The department said Herrera-Lim demanded that the material be removed and said it was not consistent with the mutual respect expected between states.

The department said it later issued a formal diplomatic protest condemning the videos and cartoons. It said China Daily had gone beyond legitimate political debate by using depictions of Filipinos that Manila called demeaning, dehumanising and racist. The Philippine embassy in Beijing also wrote to the paper's editor-in-chief to demand the immediate removal of the material.

The minute-long video was posted on China Daily's Facebook page. It showed a timid monkey wearing a barong, a traditional Filipino shirt, being pushed onto a karaoke stage on a boat. When the monkey began singing lyrics that appeared to support China's position on recent maritime delimitation talks between Manila and Tokyo, a voice shouted "wrong song" and gave it a sheet labelled "South China Sea Arbitration Award". Arms bearing US and Japanese flags then put the monkey in a catapult and launched it into a water cannon.

Philippine Defence Secretary Gilberto Teodoro said in a statement late Thursday that the video glorified violence against Filipino people and soldiers and exposed what he called the "moral and intellectual bankruptcy" of China's propaganda. He said the video was an act of dehumanisation and called China neither a secure and confident actor nor a trustworthy neighbour.

A spokesperson said China's foreign ministry in Beijing would not comment on the video because it did not represent China's official position.

The dispute comes after Manila marked the 10th anniversary on Sunday of an international arbitration ruling that found Beijing's claim over most of the South China Sea had no legal basis. The Philippines issued a joint statement on Sunday with 13 other countries, including Japan and the United States, calling the ruling legally binding. Beijing has repeatedly said the 2016 ruling is invalid and called the weekend statement a distortion of facts aimed at vilifying China.

Last month, Beijing sanctioned Teodoro after he criticised China's activities in the South China Sea, barring him from visiting mainland China, Hong Kong or Macau. In January, China filed a diplomatic protest after Philippine coast guard spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela posted a photo of himself giving a speech with comical images of Chinese President Xi Jinping in the background.