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Netflix removes Australian spy show in Vietnam over South China Sea map

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Agence France-Presse

Vietnam over scenes containing a map of the South China Sea showing Beijing&#x27;s claims in the flashpoint waterway.The map -- shown briefly in two episodes of &quot;Pine Gap&quot; -- had prompted a complaint from the Southeast Asian country&#x27;s broadcasting authority.China has long used its so-called nine-dash line to justify its claims over most of the resource-rich South China Sea, often to the displeasure of Vietnam, which also claims parts of the waterway.Vietnam&#x27;s Authority of Broadcasting and Electronic Information said on its website that the images shown during the six-episode drama had &quot;violated the country&#x27;s sovereignty over sea and islands&quot;.&quot;Netflix&#x27;s violations have hurt feelings and caused outrage among the entire Vietnamese people,&quot; it added.The statement also said this was the third time over the past 12 months that Netflix had been found to &quot;distribute movies and TV shows containing content which violates Vietnam&#x27;s sovereignty&quot;. It singled out Chinese rom-com &quot;Put Your Head on My Shoulder&quot; and the political drama &quot;Madam Secretary&quot;.Netflix confirmed that Pine Gap -- which it describes as an international political thriller set around the Australian and American joint defense intelligence facility at Pine Gap in Australia&#x27;s Northern Territory -- had been removed in Vietnam.&quot;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. &quot;It remains available on our service in the rest of the world.&quot;China claims the majority of the South China Sea, often invoking its nine-dash line as a supposed historical justification to the waters, a key global shipping route. In October 2019, Vietnamese authorities pulled the animated film &quot;Abominable&quot;, a joint production by DreamWorks and China&#x27;s Pearl Studio, from cinemas over a scene featuring a similar map showing the nine-dash line.Some films are barred in Vietnam, a one-party state where free speech is tightly controlled, while others are approved for screening only with significant edits.In the 2018 romantic comedy &quot;Crazy Rich Asians&quot;, one of the scenes cut from screening in Vietnam featured a designer bag with a map of the world showing disputed South China Sea islands under Beijing&#x27;s control.

Netflix has pulled an Australian spy show from its services in Vietnam over scenes containing a map of the South China Sea showing Beijing's claims in the flashpoint waterway.

Netflix has pulled an Australian spy show from its services in Vietnam over scenes containing a map of the South China Sea showing Beijing's claims in the flashpoint waterway.