Blackpink, Barbie and Beijing's South China Sea claims collide in Vietnam

First it was a scribbled map in the Warner Bros' Barbie film, now Blackpink are facing the ire of Vietnamese nationalists calling for a boycott of the K-pop supergroup's coming tour dates in Hanoi, as pop culture increasingly takes collateral damage from geopolitics.

Eagle-eyed social media users noticed last week that the website of iMe Entertainment, the Chinese company organising the Blackpink concerts in Vietnam slated for July 29 and 30, featured a map showing Beijing's controversial "nine-dash line" claim in the South China Sea.

The line, depicting China's territorial claims over much of the disputed waterway, has become a lightning rod for anger from other countries - most notably Vietnam and the Philippines - that hotly dispute it.

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The issue often provokes outrage, especially among Vietnam's nationalists - as the Blackpink concert organisers are finding out the hard way.

"Get the f*** out of our country ... we don't need a show that doesn't respect the sovereignty of the sea and islands. Please get out of Vietnam," said one person in the comments on Blackpink's official Facebook announcement of their Hanoi visit.

"Stop spreading the illegal map," said another, while a third user commented: "I also heard that [the organising] company is Chinese and is supporting Vietnamese enemies ... I intended to save money to go to the concert but now I'm not going any more."

A 2016 United Nations-backed arbitral tribunal in The Hague repudiated Beijing's nine-dash line claim as having no legal basis. China rejected the ruling.

Hanoi has a long, contentious history with Beijing in this area, largely focused on the Spratly, or Truong Sa in Vietnam, and Paracel, or Hoang Sa, archipelagos.

In 1988 the two sides fought a brief naval skirmish over part of the Spratly Islands, with Vietnam losing 64 soldiers and control of several reefs and atolls.

In the years since, the Vietnamese government has emerged as one of the sharpest critics of China's activities in the South China Sea.

Pham Thu Hang, spokeswoman for Vietnam's foreign ministry, called the map on promoter iMe's website "unacceptable" and a "hot button issue". "The promotion and usage of products or publications featuring the nine-dash line in Vietnam is in violation of the laws," she said.

The iMe website has been down for maintenance since the issue surfaced. On Thursday, a day before tickets were due to go on sale, Brian Chow, CEO of iME, apologised for the "unfortunate misunderstanding".

"The image of the map on the website does not represent the territory of any country and we are aware of respecting the sovereignty and culture of all the countries" where iME has a presence, he said in a statement.

"iME quickly reviewed and committed to replace the images that are not suitable for Vietnamese," he added.

The outcry has put the Vietnamese government in a tough spot, as it is adamant about the country's sovereignty over the Paracel and Spratly islands but has close economic and political ties to China.

Before the iMe controversy began, tourism officials were playing up the potential positive impact of Blackpink's concerts - especially for a country that rarely hosts major international music stars - while a comment reading "WELCOME TO VIETNAM" with several celebratory emojis was left on the K-pop group's Facebook page by the government's official account.

By July 5, however, the Vietnamese Ministry of Culture had ordered an inspection of iMe's website to verify the presence of the nine-dash line.

But there has been no indication of a boycott, yet. Tickets for the concerts went on sale on Friday as scheduled, with more than 122,000 people joining the digital queue within minutes. By midday on Sunday, many ticket categories were already sold out.

The Barbie movie was not so fortunate. Vietnam's National Council for Film Appraisal and Classification banned the film on July 3 "for scenes depicting China's nine-dash line". The star-studded blockbuster was scheduled for release on July 21, but cinema chains quickly removed it from their "coming soon" pages.

The film has come under fire in the Philippines as well, with one senator calling for a disclaimer saying that the nine-dash line is "fiction" to be included before screenings. Manila's Movie and Television Review and Classification Board is currently looking into the matter.

While Hanoi has been widely ridiculed for reacting so strongly to a movie like Barbie, Nguyen Khac Giang, a researcher of Vietnamese politics at the ISEAS - Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore, said the response was understandable as Vietnam battles China's geopolitical narrative.

"Exposure to the line may not make people support China's disputed claim, but it makes them aware of it," he said.

"This is not the first time such a thing has happened in a Hollywood movie," Nguyen said, adding its "presence is not just annoying, but it is believed by Hanoi to be part of a carefully crafted plan by China to establish a narrative and create a perception of legitimacy".

The ban was well-received in Vietnam, where people called out Warner Brothers, the main studio behind Barbie, for "pandering" to China's Communist Party.

The studio, for its part, released a statement saying "The map in Barbie Land is a whimsical, childlike crayon drawing. The doodles depict Barbie's make-believe journey from Barbie Land to the real world. It was not intended to make any type of statement." Vietnam responded by saying it would uphold the ban.

The official Barbie Vietnam Facebook page, with 89,000 followers, posted: "We love Barbie, but we love our country above all. We do not support any action violating our territorial sovereignty."

Vietnam's government has a storied history of combating pop culture deemed to offend national sensibilities.

It banned the animated movie Abominable in 2019 and the Tom Holland-led Uncharted in March last year for including depictions of the nine-dash line - a similar image was cut from a scene in 2018's Crazy Rich Asians.

But the vocal nature of social media users in response to both Barbie and Blackpink is relatively new.

"I think Vietnamese public sentiment has not significantly changed over the years, but it has been reinforced by the rise of social media and China's increasingly aggressive activities in the South China Sea," Giang said.

He ultimately believes Vietnam - and the Philippines - made the right decision in taking a stand against depictions of the line in popular culture.

"From the perspective of Hanoi and Manila, there is no dispute - you can't simply draw arbitrary lines over a vast expanse of sea and claim it as yours," he said.

This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

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