Of monkeys, crocodiles, and imperial beasts

Last month, the Philippines protested against a 58-second AI-generated video released by the Chinese state-owned newspaper China Daily. The video depicted a monkey wearing a Barong Tagalog-style shirt, holding the 2016 South China Sea arbitral ruling, and being manipulated by hands representing the United States and Japan. The monkey was later thrown into the sea and struck by a water cannon. Philippine officials viewed the video as racist and dehumanizing, while China’s Foreign Ministry said it did not represent the government’s official position.

The violent reaction was not simply about the use of an animal. Symbols have long been used to represent nations symbolically: the United States as an eagle, Russia as a bear, or China as a dragon. These are recognized national emblems. A monkey dressed as a Filipino, however, is different altogether, one that portrays a people as foolish, easily manipulated, and less than human.

During the Spanish period, Filipinos were not compared with specific animals, but frequently described through terms such as salvaje, bárbaro, uncivilized, and bestial. Such language placed Filipinos below supposedly civilized Europeans. At the 1887 Philippine Exposition in Madrid, indigenous Filipinos were displayed in reconstructed villages alongside colonial products, plants, and animals. They were treated as objects of ethnographic curiosity rather than as equals. Animal imagery became much more explicit under American rule. During the Philippine-American War, US newspapers and magazines portrayed Filipinos as monkeys, dogs, insects, or savage beasts. These images helped justify colonial conquest by suggesting that Filipinos were not yet capable of self-government. Filipinos were also represented as dogs that needed to be trained or punished, or as swarming insects that should be eliminated. Such images are documented in The Forbidden Book: The Philippine-American War in Political Cartoons. The 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair reinforced these ideas and effectively turned the colonized people into living exhibits used to defend American rule.

The monkey comparison later followed Filipino migrants in the United States. During the 1920s and 1930s, Filipino workers were sometimes called “little brown monkeys” or “monkeys without tails.” They were also excluded from housing, restaurants, swimming pools, and other public places. The familiar phrase “No Filipinos or dogs allowed,” whether or not every reported sign can be authenticated, accurately summarized the social order in which Filipinos were often treated as racially inferior.

But Filipinos have also used animal imagery against foreigners, although usually in a different way. Under Spanish rule, corrupt officials and friars were likened to buwaya, or crocodiles, representing greed and predation. American power was depicted through the eagle, sometimes protective but often shown controlling or seizing the Philippines. Foreign empires and corporations were represented as octopuses spreading their tentacles, while wartime Japanese forces were sometimes described as dogs, rats, or beasts.

In contemporary cartoons, China appears as a dragon, shark, or octopus threatening Philippine ships and territory. Yet these images usually represent the Chinese state, military, or territorial policy, not the Chinese people. This distinction matters. An eagle, dragon, or lion is a recognized national symbol. A monkey imposed upon a colonized people carries a history of racial inferiority. Other nations have used similar language with even more terrible consequences. Nazi propaganda portrayed Jews as rats, lice, and disease-bearing vermin. During the Second World War, Japanese people were depicted in American propaganda as apes, rats, insects, and snakes. Chinese migrants were likewise described in Western countries as rats, swarms, and disease carriers.

Animal imagery is not always racist. Political cartoons naturally rely on exaggeration and symbolism. The important questions are whom the animal represents, whether it is a recognized national emblem, and whether the image criticizes a government’s conduct or denies the humanity of an entire people. The China Daily monkey therefore revived more than a century of colonial imagery. Behind the modern AI animation stood the American caricature of the Filipino ape, the “little brown monkey” insult directed at migrants, and the colonial belief that Filipinos were creatures to be trained, manipulated, or punished. The technology was new, but the prejudice was not.