Sanjeeb Phuyal is the Nepali Editor of Newschecker based in Kathmandu, Nepal. He brings over a decade of experience writing and editing news. In his previous stint, he worked as online editor for The Kathmandu Post. With the growth of social media platforms—and the ever-growing competition amongst media outlets to churn out breaking news, he feels that fact-checking every piece of information has become more essential today than ever before.
Claim
China sent warships to the Middle East to support Palestine in the ongoing conflict.
Fact
Viral video shows a speculative media report falsely linking the deployment of warships to Israel-Palestine conflict.
As Israel and Hamas agree to a four-day truce in the ongoing conflict, a video claiming that China has sent six warships to defend Palestine is going viral on TikTok.
The ceasefire is a diplomatic breakthrough expected to free dozens of Israeli hostages as well as Palestinians imprisoned in Israel. The armistice has raised hopes of winding down the conflict that escalated after a deadly surprise attack on Israel on October 7.
Against this backdrop, TikTok user @ofonism posted a video showing an image of Chinese President Xi Jinping, donned in military uniform and flanked by other military personnel. The video also shows an image of Text superimposed on the video reads, “Breaking News. China sends six warships to defend Palestine.” America and Israel should stop this provocation of World War 3 now.”
The video posted on November 18 has garnered 8255 likes, 243 people have shared it and 637 users have commented until the time of publishing this article.”
The archived version of the TikTok video can be seen here.
Newschecker found the claim to be misleading.
Fact Check /Verification
To check the authenticity of the claim made in the viral video, Newschecker closely observed the video and noticed the logo of CNBC TV 18 on the top right corner. Taking a clue from the video, we ran a search on Google by using relevant keywords and found a video published on the YouTube channel of CNBC TV.
On checking the video dated October 22, 2023, we found that a frame from the viral video exactly matched the viral video. The video reported that China has sent six warships to the Middle East amid growing tensions between Israel and Hamas. However, the report doesn’t confirm that the warships were deployed to defend Palestine.
We found several media reports making assumptions that China sent warships amid tensions in the region. However, none of the reports could verify that the ships were deployed to support Palestine.
Further, we checked an article, dated Oct 23 2023, published on Global Times and found that the report said that the deployment of warships in the region is part of China’s routine escort mission and friendly visits to the region and it was not an interference in the ongoing Israel-Palestine conflict.
The news article quoted a Spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in the US calling for an end to the baseless hyping over the deployment of Chinese warships in the region.
We also found an article, dated October 26, 2023, published on China Daily online in which the China’s Defence Ministry has clarified that the presence of six ships is the Middle East region has no relation with the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Thus, our findings clearly show that the claim that China deployed six warships in the conflict-hit Middle East to support Palestine is misleading.
Conclusion
The viral video claiming that China sent six warships to Palestine is misleading; actually the deployment of the ships in the Middle East was a “routine escort mission and friendly visits” and has nothing to do with the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Result: Partly False
Sources
CNBC TV-18/YouTube, Oct 22, 2023
Global Times, Oct 23, 2023
China Daily, Oct 26, 2023
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Sanjeeb Phuyal is the Nepali Editor of Newschecker based in Kathmandu, Nepal. He brings over a decade of experience writing and editing news. In his previous stint, he worked as online editor for The Kathmandu Post. With the growth of social media platforms—and the ever-growing competition amongst media outlets to churn out breaking news, he feels that fact-checking every piece of information has become more essential today than ever before.
