Social media videos circulating on X late on Tuesday showed thick, dark smoke rising from the deck of a Chinese navy warship operating off the coast of China.
Amid speculation that the People's Liberation Army Navy vessel—a Type 071 landing platform dock—may have caught fire, subject-matter experts said a training exercise was a more likely explanation.
The eyewitness footage, filmed from a beach in an as yet undisclosed Chinese city, showed crowds of onlookers observing the smoke emanating from several locations on the vessel.
One clip posted to Weibo, China's X-like microblogging platform, had nearly 250,000 views at the time of publication. The user Menghujing (cute killer whale), who said they did not own the video, said it showed the warship releasing a "smokescreen," according to the caption.
Defense experts on X commented on the possibility of an accident on board the PLA Navy ship. Many also felt a rare smokescreen training exercise was possible, especially given the lack of rescue vessels at the scene.
The true nature of the incident, however, remains uncertain. Newsweek was unable to independently verify the authenticity of the video, when and where it was taken, or whether it was the result of an accident.
Rumors about mishaps related to China's naval assets are a hotly debated topic—Beijing is on course to deploy the world's largest and heaviest fleet in the coming years, having already surpassed the shipbuilding capacity of the United States.
In September, an alleged accident involving a PLA Navy Type 093 nuclear submarine spread online, with newspapers in Britain claiming all crew on the Chinese boat died during an incident off China's eastern coast.
Officially, the fate of the submarine remains unconfirmed, although regional governments—most notably Taiwan—have commented on the incident. A recent report by Taipei said the submarine "accident" was a sign of the obstacles faced by China's efforts to modernize its military.
A smokescreen, while clearly visible to the naked eye, can obscure a ship's radar signature and make it more difficult to target while on the move, commentators on Weibo explained.
Menghujin, the user who shared the clip, also predicted the rumors that that would later emerge on Western social media platforms—because some of the same discussions were happening on the Chinese internet, too.
"The people on the beach were stunned for a moment," they wrote. "They thought it was on fire and believed that anti-China forces were going to exploit this video."
Menghujin said the original video—first posted to a private chat group—was later deleted.
That reproductions of the video remain visible to Weibo users suggests the incident might not be as sensitive to Chinese authorities, who regularly censor unfavorable content online.
Brian Hart, a China Power Project researcher at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank in Washington, D.C., said it would be "a big loss" for China if the rumored fire accident was accurate.
The PLA Navy operates eight Type 071 vessels, said Hart, who described them as "very large and capable."
China's first Type 075 landing helicopter dock caught fire in April 2020 while being fitted out at the Hudong shipyard in Shanghai, according to eyewitnesses statements at the time. The Chinese government never confirmed the incident, and the extent of the damage was unclear.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Aadil Brar is a reporter for Newsweek based in Taipei, Taiwan. He covers international security, U.S.-China relations, and East Asian ... Read more
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