Vietnam has decided to ban the upcoming Barbie film owing to a scene that showcases a map featuring disputed Chinese territorial claims in the South China Sea.

Vietnam, along with several other countries, contests China's assertion of almost all of the South China Sea.

The film, centered around the iconic doll, has already generated considerable buzz on social media and was scheduled for release in cinemas on 21 July.

The specific scene depicting China's "offensive image" of the nine-dash line, which is used in Chinese maps to assert territorial claims in the South China Sea, has not been disclosed.

For years, Beijing has been constructing military bases on artificial islands in the South China Sea and conducting naval patrols to assert its territorial claims in the region.

Get in Barbies, its Seoul time! 💓 pic.twitter.com/D7lDZ55579— Barbie Movie (@barbiethemovie) July 3, 2023

In 2016, an international tribunal in The Hague ruled against China's claims in the South China Sea, but Beijing refused to acknowledge the judgment.

Warner Bros' Barbie film is not the only production to face a ban in Vietnam for featuring the controversial nine-dash line. In 2019, the DreamWorks animated film Abominable was also pulled for the same reason.

Similarly, the Sony action movie Uncharted faced a ban from the Vietnamese Department of Cinema, the government body responsible for licensing and censoring foreign films, three years later. Additionally, Netflix removed the Australian spy drama Pine Gap from the Vietnamese market following an official complaint.

The South China Sea is a contested region, with China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia, and Brunei all having competing claims in the area. The disputes over territorial rights have led to tensions in the region and raised concerns among neighboring countries and the international community.