The Claim:
A video posted to YouTube falsely claims that the Canadian and US Navies sank 300 Chinese fishing ships in October 2023. The headline of the YouTube video characterizes the fake incident as “Brutal War!”. The YouTube video includes footage taken inside the HMS Ottawa and a clip of unidentified small ships burning on the sea. The video includes English language narration to give the appearance of an established media platform. The video has been viewed 5,710 times.
Narrative Context:
The Chinese foreign ministry has regularly criticized Canadian military activities in the Pacific, mischaracterizing them as “provocations” and calling for Canada to avoid “inappropriate behavior”.
The Chinese government has been critical of Canadian foreign policy for many years, starting with Canada’s execution of a US extradition request for Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou, to which China retaliated with the arbitrary detention of Canadians Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig in 2018.
Chinese government information operations regularly target Western governments and position them as threatening China’s sovereignty.
The Facts:
The footage in this fake video has been edited from a September 10, 2023, CBC report about Canadian Navy vessels transiting the Taiwan Strait. The reporter, David Commons, reports from the HMCS Ottawa.
DisinfoWatch analyzed the fake YouTube video and discovered that the footage used in it was mirrored, raising suspicion that it was edited and added from a different report. Footage included images of crew members whose uniforms included Canadian insignia and flags. We took a screen capture of frames that included a crew member of the ship and mirrored them along a vertical axis to make the name of the crew member visible. We searched for the name “Patchell” and discovered that the Commanding Officer of the HMCS Ottawa is Cdr Sam Patchell. We then searched Cdr Patchell’s name and found the CBC National report, which included mirrored footage from the CVBC to which effects had been applied.
A screenshot of the CBC National report on the left and that same footage, mirrored on the right in the fake video. The image on the bottom is a screenshot of the fake video flipped. It matches the CBC footage on the top left.
The YouTube Fake video:
On October 29, a Canadian helicopter from the HMCS Ottawa encountered a Chinese jet fighter in the South China Sea, east of the Paracel Islands. The Chinese jet displayed aggressive behavior, circling the Canadian helicopter, firing flares, and passing dangerously close, within 30 meters. This incident, reported by CNN, occurred in international waters and highlights the escalating tensions in the region, particularly in the Taiwan Strait.
Days after this incident, the HMCS Ottawa partnered with the U.S. destroyer USS Rafael Peralta for a patrol through the Taiwan Strait, a route that has become increasingly contentious. This patrol was monitored by three Chinese warships, underscoring the growing militarization and strategic importance of the are
