KUALA LUMPUR, July 13 — Indonesians are fuming on Twitter over a video clip that claimed batik as a traditional Chinese craft.

The 49-second clip produced by China’s Xinhua News Agency described batik as a traditional craft practiced by ethnic minorities in the provinces of Guizhou and Yunan in southwestern China.

Batik is a traditional textile made using wax-resist dyeing technique that is synonymous to the cultures of nations in the Nusantara region such as Indonesia and Malaysia.

 

The clip which has garnered over 237,000 views and 1,800 retweets so far, received a barrage of disapproval from Indonesians.

“Batik is traditionally from Indonesia, not China. This is so wrong,” one user tweeted back.

“Why used the word batik instead of an original Chinese word?” another commented.

 

 

 

Others stepped in in defence of the clip, arguing that although the word batik was used, the technique did not originate from Indonesia.

 

 

Indonesian batik, which has roots in Java, was declared an intangible cultural heritage by Unesco in 2009.

This came after a heated cultural feud between the republic and neighbouring Malaysia after many Indonesians alleged that batik techniques were stolen by Malaysians.

Xinhua is China’s official state-run news agency and is the largest and most influential media organisation in the country.