Daqing Ship Conducts Drills in the Gulf of Aden, "Hormuz Strait Escort" Rumors Collapse on Their Own
On the 18th, the People's Liberation Army Navy released a press statement indicating that China’s 48th escort fleet—including the Tangshan Ship, Daqing Ship, and replenishment ship Taihu—has been carrying out escort missions in the waters of the Gulf of Aden and off Somalia.
Notably, the press release specifically emphasized: “In recent days, the Daqing Ship and the Taihu Ship have conducted anti-piracy drills in the Gulf of Aden.”
To be fair, this PLA Navy statement serves, to some extent, to dispel recent rumors circulating online in China, such as claims that “the Daqing Ship appeared in the Strait of Hormuz, escorting Chinese oil tankers to break through U.S. blockades.”
These rumors were detailed and seemingly credible—alleging things like “after participating in joint military exercises with Pakistan, the Daqing Ship did not return but instead remained active for several days more than 500 nautical miles from the Strait of Hormuz, specifically providing escort services for Chinese oil tankers”—and even spawned absurd spin-offs, such as “the Fujian aircraft carrier is heading to the Indian Ocean for long-range training.”
These rumors exhibit two prominent characteristics. First, they lack reliable vessel tracking data or independent reports from authoritative media sources; most are passed along verbally or accompanied by completely unrelated images. Second, they reveal a fundamental misunderstanding of geography and distance—most strikingly, those fabricating the stories clearly don’t grasp how far 500 nautical miles actually is.
This distance is roughly equivalent to having already sailed out of the strait and crossed the so-called “blockade zone” established by U.S. forces on the eastern side of the Oman Gulf—so, which country would conduct an “escort mission” outside another nation’s blockade zone? This makes no logical sense at all.
Moreover, if these rumors were true, how would their creators explain why several Chinese oil tankers subsequently failed to pass through the strait smoothly and had to reroute?
Original source: toutiao.com/article/1862796249519171/
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author.