This picture of top US general Mark Milley has been doctored

This article is more than one year old.
Published on October 28, 2021 at 11:54
2 min read
By AFP Hong Kong

An image is circulating in social media posts that claim it shows top US general Mark Milley receiving a golden Huawei phone from the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA). The image has been doctored. The original photo shows Milley meeting Swiss army chief Thomas Süssli in 2019.

"General Mark Milley receives a golden Huawei telephone from PLA counterpart to celebrate his extraordinary service," reads a tweet posted on September 20.

The People's Liberation Army (PLA) is the armed wing of the Chinese Communist Party.

The photo appears to show late Chinese general Zhang Yang shaking hands with US general Mark Milley and handing him a Huawei-labelled gift box.

A screenshot of the misleading post taken on October 27, 2021

Zhang killed himself in 2017 after authorities opened an investigation over his links to two corruption-tainted former senior military officers.

US regulators' action against Chinese telecom giant Huawei has strained already tense relations between the superpowers.

Trump's White House began an aggressive campaign in 2018 to short-circuit Huawei's global ambitions, cutting it off from key components and banning it from using Google's Android services.

The image was shared in similar posts here and here.

However, the image has been doctored from a photo that shows Mark Milley meeting a Swiss general, not a Chinese general.

A reverse image search on Google found a similar photo published on December 19, 2019 on the website of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, of which Milley is chairman.

A screenshot, taken on October 27, 2021, of the JCS website.

"Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark A. Milley meets with Switzerland Chief of the Armed Forces Lt. Gen. (select) Thomas Süssli in Bern, Switzerland, December 18, 2019," the photo caption reads.

"During the meeting, the two senior military leaders discussed mutual security interests between Switzerland and the United States (Photo by U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class Chuck Burden)".

Below is a screenshot comparison of the doctored photo (left) and the genuine photo (right).

A screenshot comparison of the doctored photo (L) and the photo on JCS (R).

AFP has previously fact-checked false claims about Huawei here and here.

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