PCFR condemns Chinese monkey video

THE Philippine Council for Foreign Relations (PCFR) condemned the artificial intelligence (AI) video posted by China Daily last week that depicted a Filipino as a monkey. The video, uploaded on YouTube on July 10, depicted a monkey in an attire unmistakably intended to represent the Philippines, clothed in a barong tagalog and a salakot. “Whatever political argument China Daily sought to advance, the visual language it chose is unmistakable. It reduces Filipinos to animals, denies the Philippines independent judgment and agency, ridicules a symbol of our national identity, and presents humiliation and physical coercion as an acceptable response to disagreement. This is not legitimate criticism, robust political commentary, or defensible satire. It is demeaning, dehumanizing, and racist propaganda,” the group said. The council also branded the video as “dehumanization” and “racist imagery.” “China is free to state its legal and political position, just as the Philippines is entitled to defend its rights and national interests. But disputes among states must be resolved through law, evidence, diplomacy, and reason. Dehumanization is not an argument. Racist imagery is not diplomacy. State-sponsored ridicule is not a substitute for a credible legal case,” the council said. It said the China Daily publication cannot be treated as a private publisher, because the publication is state-owned and state-run. “China Daily cannot be treated as an ordinary private publisher whose conduct is wholly detached from the Chinese state. It is China’s state-owned and state-run national English-language newspaper, and it presents itself internationally as an authoritative ‘Voice of China’ and ‘Window to China.’ Its content is therefore reasonably understood abroad as carrying the weight and imprimatur of a major organ of Chinese state communication,” the PCFR said.