Old image misrepresented as Chinese navy ships at US coast
- Published on December 8, 2025 at 07:42
- 2 min read
- By Sammy HEUNG, AFP Hong Kong
The United States and its allies regularly conduct "freedom of navigation" sailings in contested waters near China, drawing criticism from Beijing. Social media users have shared a picture falsely claiming it showed Chinese warships in a similar operation in waters near the United States. In fact, the image used in the post was taken in 2016 during a China-Russia naval joint drill.
"Four Chinese warships arriving in the United States," reads the simplified Chinese post published on Facebook on October 22, 2025, which also shares a picture of several ships.
"Freedom of navigation! These four ships are seeking US help so that (China's) People's Liberation Army can defect to the Republic of China (Taiwan's official name) to eradicate evil communist forces," text on the picture reads.
It goes on to list the four ships as the destroyers Lhasa and the Kaifeng, the Yantai frigate, and the Kekexilihu replenishment ship.
Similar posts carrying the same image also circulated on TikTok and Douyin, but claim instead the vessels arrived to show off China's might so that "the Americans will speak politely".
Warships from the United States and its allies regularly conduct "freedom of navigation" sailings through waters claimed by China -- such as the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait -- which angers Beijing (archived here, here and here).
China claims almost all of the South China Sea despite overlapping claims with its neighbours, and has dispatched warships and planes in response to foreign vessels it said had "intruded" its airspace and waters.
It also asserts its sovereignty over self-ruled Taiwan and has ramped up pressure on the island in recent years with multiple large-scale military exercises that are often described as rehearsals for a blockade and seizure of the territory (archived link).
However, the photo in the post does not show Chinese warships sailing near the US coast.
A reverse image search on Google found China's state-run Xinhua news agency published a picture showing the same scene in a report on September 19, 2016, about a joint naval drill between China and Russia (archived link).
Its caption says it shows Chinese soldiers waving goodbye to the Russian fleet after they completed a drill in waters off China's southern Guangdong province.
The leading ship's hull number 151 indicates it is the Zhengzhou missile destroyer, which is not among the vessels mentioned in the false post.
Xinhua has published a picture distributed by AFP on May 27, 2014 showing a ship bearing the same hull number identified as the Zhengzhou (archived link).
Chinese state media CCTV published a video of the joint naval drill on September 19, 2016, with its caption saying that the Zhengzhou was one of the missile destroyers participating in the exercise (archived link). A ship with hull number 151 can also be seen in the video.
AFP has previously debunked other misinformation about US-China relations.
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