A Facebook video is erroneously claiming that United States military personnel have landed on the coast of Taiwan to allegedly defend it against China as tensions rise between the two countries. This is not true.
On July 30, a Filipino FB user published a minute-long video showing amphibious vehicles arriving at an unspecified beach and unloading armed soldiers who ran towards the shore. The following text is superimposed throughout the video:
“Pray for Taiwan. Daong na sa coast ng Taiwan. Ang hukbo ng US dumating na sa Taiwan ([They’ve] docked on Taiwan’s coast. The U.S. military has already landed in Taiwan).”
A Filipino narrator claimed that U.S. troops came to Taiwan due to the rising tension between Taiwan and China, further adding that war between the two is possibly happening just weeks after the border conflict between Thailand and Cambodia erupted.
For context, China considers Taiwan a renegade province that will once return under its sovereignty and other countries that subscribe to the One China policy do not recognize Taiwan’s independence, while Taiwan insists on its own autonomy and nationhood.
This is false. A reverse image search revealed that the short clip was given the wrong context.
The original video was published by the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service, which publishes real-time U.S. military activities and operated by the U.S. Department of Defense.
According to information provided on their website, the video is an aerial view of an amphibious landing during the Atlantic Alliance exercises on June 30. The military activity happened in the state of Virginia in the U.S., not Taiwan.
There is no official U.S. military presence in Taiwan since it pulled out in 1979, although a retired U.S. admiral said during a May congressional testimony that there were over 500 military trainers currently operating throughout Taiwan.
The spurious video emerged a day after Taiwan’s Deputy Foreign Minister Wu Chih-chung said in an exclusive interview that “China is preparing to invade Taiwan” amid souring relations between Taiwan and Washington due to U.S. tariffs on specific Taiwanese products.
The FB user’s erroneous video has garnered over 870 comments, 2,100 shares and 1.1 million views.
