Monkey Business in the Philippines
Earlier this month, an AI-generated video depicting the Philippines as a frightened monkey ignited outrage in Manila and drew condemnation from the country’s diplomats and lawmakers. Posted on July 10 to the social media account of China Daily (中國日報), the official English-language outlet of the Chinese central government, the video showed a monkey in a salakot and barong — the traditional hat and shirt worn on formal occasions — pushed onto a karaoke stage by giant hands bearing US and Japanese flags, in an apparent suggestion that the Philippines is a puppet of the two countries.
“This is another act that reflects the mindset of an entitled bully,” said Philippine Representative Leila de Lima.
Nearly as outrageous, however, was the flat denial of responsibility that followed later in the month from China’s top diplomat in the Philippines. On July 21, the same day Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. summoned him over a Chinese Coast Guard attack on a Filipino soldier, Ambassador Jing Quan (井泉) told reporters that the video had not reflected the official stance of the Chinese government — an assertion clearly at odds with the outlet’s role as an arm of the party-state. “We simply cannot control every media outlet, every video, every article, and every newspaper,” he said.
China Daily, in fact, operates directly under the Central Propaganda Department and the State Council, and all its content is subject to political controls under the CCP’s decades-old doctrine of “guidance of public opinion” (舆论導向), which requires media to align coverage with the Party’s messaging. In its own 2025 social responsibility report, an annual exercise required of all core Party and state-run Chinese media, China Daily describes itself as “a major central propaganda and cultural unit” (中央主要宣传文化单位), and pledges strict adherence to the principle of Party control over media.
The monkey video, posted to coincide with the 10th anniversary of the 2016 South China Sea arbitral ruling that invalidated China’s territorial claims, drew a formal diplomatic protest from the Philippines’ Department of Foreign Affairs, which called the depiction “demeaning, dehumanizing, and racist” and demanded its removal.
