Old photos of US Navy vessels misrepresented as showing 'rusty Chinese warships'
- Published on March 31, 2025 at 10:55
- 4 min read
- By Carina CHENG, AFP Hong Kong
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"The People's Liberation Army is really 'rusty'! Right after circumnavigating Australia, the Type 055 (destroyer) was caught on camera by Indonesia looking rusty. This is how the Chinese media rushed to explain it..." reads a traditional Chinese X post shared on March 12, 2025.
The post links to a since-updated report with the same headline that was published by Taiwanese online media outlet Newtalk on March 11. The article's preview thumbnail shows a collage of closeups of rust on four navy ships.
The collage circulated after Chinese warships sailed around Australia, and conducted live firing drills off the country's east coast on February 22 and 23 (archived link).
Australia and New Zealand criticised China for staging the drills underneath a busy flight path between the countries with little notice, forcing some 49 flights to divert. Beijing's ambassador to Australia Xiao Qian, however, described the notice given for the surprise naval drills as "appropriate".
The photos were shared in similar posts claiming the Chinese warships were "rusty" on X and Facebook.
But the images are in fact old photos of US vessels.
Misrepresented blog
A keyword search on Google using a watermark in the bottom-right of the collage circulating online led to the same collage in a simplified Chinese article published by a military blogger on March 10 (archived link).
The Taiwanese news articles appear to have taken the collage from this blog, and misidentified the blogger as being "Chinese media".
In the blog, the user says the ships are US Navy vessels and compares the rust on them to patches of corrosion visible in photos of Chinese warships returning from Australia which were posted by an Indonesia-based X user on March 9 (archived link).
"Overall, the maintenance condition of the rest of the (Chinese ships') hulls is still quite good, indicating that the naval fleet's maintenance capability for ocean-going warships is quite strong," they said.
"In comparison, the US Navy's capability for ocean-going maintenance is far inferior to that of the Chinese navy."
Reverse image and keyword searches on Google found the photos used in the circulating collage predate the Chinese warships' journey around Australia.
The first image is a cropped version of a photo published by the independent US Naval Institute in January 2022, credited to the US Navy (archived link).
Its caption reads: "Overwhelming demands on the current fleet combined with the inability to add new ships is taking its toll. Here the USS Stout (DDG-55) shows a lot of rust returning from a nine-month deployment in 2020."
The second image in the collage has also been cropped from a photo that has circulated since November 2018, when the USS Curtis Wilbur visited Hong Kong.
The uncropped photo was used in articles that noted that military enthusiasts in the city were disappointed to see the "rusty and shabby appearance" of the ship (archived link).
The third image in the set can be found on the website of British photo agency Alamy (archived link).
The photo's caption states it shows the USS Benfold, and was taken in Guam on September 29, 2016.
The final photo in the collage was posted on X by naval journalist Chris Cavas on August 6, 2019, and credited to Leo van Ginderen (archived link).
"Deployed US #amphibious ship USS Fort McHenry LSD43 leaving Kiel, Germany 9 June after a 3-day port call, during which the crew did not make their ship appear more presentable. Note to USN leaders: everyone notices this." reads the image's caption.
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