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Vietnam orders Pine Gap drama to be pulled

A map of the South China Sea has hurt feelings and angered the entire Vietnamese people.

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Australian drama series Pine Gap has been yanked from screening in Vietnam over a map of the South China Sea.

Vietnam’s Authority of Broadcasting and Electronic Information directed Netflix to withdraw the series from screening.

“The appearance of false information about Vietnamese sovereignty in the above episodes of Netflix has seriously violated the provisions of Vietnamese law. In Clauses 3 and 4, Article 9, the Press Law strictly prohibits providing content that incites war, violates Vietnam’s sovereignty and territorial integrity; Clause 4, Article 11, of the Law on Cinema prohibits content that distorts historical facts, denies revolutionary achievements, offends the nation, great men, and national heroes,” it said in a statement.

“Besides, socially, Netflix’s violations hurt feelings and angered the entire Vietnamese people.”

It was the third time over the past 12 months that Netflix had been found to “distribute movies and TV shows containing content which violates Vietnam’s sovereignty” noting objections to Chinese rom-com Put Your Head on My Shoulder and US drama Madam Secretary.

Netflix confirmed in a statement, “Following a written legal demand from the Vietnamese regulator, we have removed the licensed series, Pine Gap, from Netflix in Vietnam, to comply with local law.

“It remains available on our service in the rest of the world.”

Filmed in South Australia, Pine Gap aired in Australia on ABC in 2018 starring Parker Sawyers, Tess Haubrich, Lewis FitzGerald, Jacqueline McKenzie, Kelton Pell, Madeleine Madden and Mark Leonard Winter.

Source: SBS

4 Responses

  1. For Netflix this is just the compromise of running a global business especially in a region becoming increasingly sensitive to geopolitical issues and where media censorship is active.

    2. The actual issue is the “nine-dash line” which appears on the map of China. The issue is that there is a 12 nautical mile zone off the coastline that is claimed by the country and a 200 nautical mile Exclusive Economic Zone. I am not sure about continental shelf though. Anything outside that is open seas. However, China has been building artificial islands in the South China Sea to extend their area, and has made the claim that it has always been Chinese territory since ancient times. However, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Philippines has also laid claims to parts of the South China Sea which includes areas in the nine-dash line (as highlighted in the case of Vietnam in this article).

      This situation is similar to the recent case between Australia and Timor Leste and the Timor Gap situation which had been in the news recently as evident by the Witness K court case recently.

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