The Nine-Dash Line Gets ‘Barbie’ Banned in Vietnam

The upcoming film Barbie has been banned in Vietnam, the Washington Post reports, because it apparently depicts a map showing the nine-dash line—the line that depicts China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea. That line, and those claims, enclose the Paracel Islands, which Vietnam also claims as its territory. Blame Hollywood’s aversion to getting banned in the much larger Chinese market for not showing the nine-dash line, I guess; while Vietnam has a history of banning films for this reason (including, per the nine-dash line Wikipedia page, the recent films Abominable and Uncharted), it’s not remotely the only state that indulges in this sort of thing.