Posts floating around social media platforms such as X and YouTube are claiming that China is building “floating mobile platforms” to bridge Mainland China to Taiwan as part of invasion plans. These claim posts are accompanied by images of large boats that appear to have long bridge sections either sitting atop them or attached to them. 
Tensions between China and Taiwan over Taiwan’s political status have been an ongoing issue for decades. Navel confrontations and disputes in and about the Taiwan Strait, a 180-kilometre-wide stretch which separates the two sides, have also been a mainstay of this tension.
As such, the notion of China preparing for an attack has led to speculation amongst users who have seen this claim (and the accompanying images of long bridges) circulating. We’ve noticed some users spreading this claim as fact on social media in other discussions about China and their political or military ambitions.
However, while the claim posts suggest that a long, unbroken bridge is being built to directly connect Mainland China to Taiwan, a more detailed look at recent reporting suggests otherwise.
Rather than a bridge being built from land-to-land, these claims likely stem from reports of new boats being tested by China. According to images posted on Chinese social media and subsequently analysed by English-language publications, these boats are likely “landing barges” that are “purpose-built” for smooth and rapid landing and transfer of cargo from the boats to the shore. While images being used in the claim posts do match those from reputable reports and news outlets (such as the Guardian), they omit the above context entirely. Some claims even wrongly describe the boats as “floating platforms.”
It should be noted that China itself has not released any statements on these boats. However some analysts and experts have speculated in news articles that they could be part of a “Taiwan invasion scenario.” And, building on these analyses, accompanying headlines have been written with a strong Taiwan focus – possibly leading to the misrepresentation of facts in the claim posts.
Therefore, China is not building a bridge directly across the sea to attack Taiwan. Rather, reports based on footage captured of Chinese landing barges have been misconstrued. We give this claim a rating of false.
While some believe the boats being tested are part of Chinese military aggression, it is not possible to regard these analyses as fact or confirmed news. And, the warping of the original story – about boats made to facilitate landing – into an actual “attack bridge” demonstrates how rapidly and easily headlines can be misunderstood or even maliciously leveraged to produce misinformation and false claims.
It is important to be alert to this potential; not only in the present, but to prevent similar or more serious misinformation in the case of actual military conflict – particularly given Singapore’s proximity to various maritime disputes in and around the South China Sea.
