How ‘Barbie’ and Blackpink figure in a dangerous territorial dispute

News Snapshot:

Of all the things that could inflame tensions in a region that could someday be a theatre of war between superpowers, the movie Barbie was not an obvious catalyst. Yet here we are. The authorities in Vietnam this week banned the upcoming Greta Gerwig film over a map in Barbie that they said shows a Chinese map of territory in the South China Sea, where the two neighbours have competing claims. The Philippines, another Southeast Asian country that disputes China’s territorial claims in the sea, is now deciding whether to ban the star-studded film as well. And Vietnam said on...