These are claims that held our attention last week:
The pictures hung in the US military＇s war room do not show the Eight-Nation Alliance
On April 19, the House of Representatives Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party and Washington think tank the Center for a New American Security conducted a war game simulating a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. Right after that, a picture on Weibo (the Chinese version of Twitter) claiming to show “the US military hanging photos of the Eight-Nation Alliance in the war room” has gone viral on social media.
The screenshot of the Weibo post published on April 23
The Eight-Nation Alliance was a multi-national military coalition set up in 1900 to defend legations and Christian missionaries attacked by Chinese Boxer rebels in China. The US was one of the nations.
This claim was then picked up and widely promoted by Chinese and Hong Kong media outlets and social media users and eventually spread to Taiwan＇s social media platforms and then Taiwanese media outlets, linking the photo to the recent war game simulation.
Some Taiwanese political pundits used the photo to comment on the relationship between China and the US, suggesting that there is no mutual trust between the two countries.
The screenshot of the clip of the Taiwanese political talk show discussing about the war room photo with alledgely photos of the Eight-Nation Alliance hung on the wall.
However, the claim is false. Here is our fact-check.
We were lucky to find a US Marine Corps University student who could go to the Brute Krulak Center for Innovation & Future Warfare at the US Marine Corps University, where the war room is and where the pictures were hung.
Thanks to the photos the students took for us, we know the three black and white photos on the wall were all taken in the 1930s and have no relation to the Eight-Nation Alliance that occurred in 1900.
A photo taken by a US Marine Corps University student shows that three photos on the wall were all taken in the 1930s.
The claim is now debunked; however, it shows how easily a piece of falsehood spread from an untrustworthy Chinese Weibo account all the way to the Taiwanese mainstream news media. It is urgent to understand the pathways of disinformation spreading.
The “plan for the destruction of Taiwan” claim
A screenshot of a tweet by a radio show host, Garland Nixon, has recently been circulating on social media, claiming that “US President Biden said the US military would not protect the people of Taiwan.”
Screenshot of the Garland Nixon tweet.
The claim is fictional. In fact, the hoax is a sequel to the “plan for the Destruction of Taiwan” claim in late February.
In February, a Taiwanese politician shared Nixon＇s tweet, claiming that “Biden has a Taiwan destruction plan,” which sparked controversies in Taiwan. Nixon was so surprised that his tweet was misinterpreted and later made a video explaining that his tweet was satirical. We also published a fact-check.
Screenshot of a Facebook post citing Garland Nixon’s February tweet of “the plan for the destruction of Taiwan”.
After some searches, it is known that Nixon is the host of the Russian state-funded Sputnik Radio. His tweets often claim to be “revealed by insiders in the White House” or “breaking news,” but most are nonsensical, nor did any international media follow up on them.
However, through the amplification by Taiwanese politicians and news outlets, this kind of “fake news” made its way and was used as evidence to discuss and debate US-China-Taiwan relations. The case again shows how important it is to block the spread of mis-/disinformation by media literacy in advance.
You can find the Chinese version of the monitoring report here.