‘Laughable, cynical’: Filipinos pan Chinese coronavirus music video as South China Sea propaganda
- Penned by the Chinese ambassador, Iisang Dagat (One Sea), was supposed to celebrate ties between the two nations
- Instead, its accompanying YouTube video featuring images of Covid-19 aid is being seen as a cynical attempt to distract from Beijing’s maritime actions
It features four singers: embassy staffer Xia Wenxin, Filipino singer Imelda Papin who was popular in the 1980s and is now a vice-governor of Camarines Sur province in the Philippines’ largest island of Luzon, Filipino-Chinese Singer Jhonvid Bangayan and Chinese actor Yubin from the television series The Untamed.
Newspaper columnist and Filipino-Chinese entrepreneur Wilson Lee Flores said the music video had the “wrong timing”.
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But analysts say recent confrontations involving China in the disputed South China Sea have drawn attention away from its coronavirus diplomacy and refocused it instead on its assertive maritime behaviour.
The lyrics include lines like “because of your love that flows like waves hand in hand, we move to a bright future, you and I are in one sea” and “the brightness gives pagasa [hope] to each country.” Pagasa is also the name of an island occupied by the Philippine military that China has been claiming.
Music teacher Mary Ann Choco said the tune of the song was “OK … but considering China’s actions it’s laughable. One sea that it wants all for itself. The hypocrisy of China.”
Security analyst Chester Cabalza likened the release of the video to “schizophrenic behaviour” on the part of China.
“They offer clinical aid on Covid-19 but at the same time they aggressively manoeuvre their military expansion on the South China Sea.”
Cabalza, who studied in the National Defence University in Beijing, pointed to a survey last November about how Filipinos perceived China and the US. “There was a very low trust rating for China and that was before the pandemic. How much more now, if we survey Filipinos during the pandemic, they will definitely have great disenchantment with China.”
According to the Philippine Daily Inquirer the music video was produced by the embassy, local company Chinatown TV and Guizhou Xinpan Media Company. Flores said “I heard it’s a wrong translation, the real title was supposed to be ‘Across the Sea’ or ‘Beyond the Sea’. Maybe the ambassador wanted to say ‘we are different countries but we all want to share the same sea’.”
But Flores said it was a “wrong metaphor because there is a dispute over these islands, there should not be a metaphor about the sea … you discuss things that are common to you.”
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He said that “if you have a best friend and you always argue over basketball, you don’t discuss this when you want to promote harmony.”
Other Filipinos on Facebook have urged their countrymen to instead support a different music video called “Save Our Seas”. It features three entertainers, a Vietnamese, a Filipino and a Malaysian, calling on “friends” to stop “them” from taking the “Great South East”.
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The video has clocked 1.28 million views on the Facebook page of Vietnamese rapper Tu P, one of the singers featured in the clip (some 800 users from Southeast Asia have commented, mostly Filipinos) and over 22,000 views on his YouTube channel.
An old Philippine Navy institutional video is also making the rounds on social media following the backlash against Iisang Dagat, the Inquirer reported.
The Philippine Navy video, released in time for its 110th anniversary in 2008, showcased its capabilities with the song “Iisang Bangka (One Boat)” by the band The Dawn as background music.
Additional reporting by Reuters and Sreejith Sreedharan
