October 30, 2022

On September 19, 2020, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) published a highly produced short propaganda film on the popular Chinese social media platform Weibo.

The two-minutes video depicted a fictional aerial attack conducted by three Chinese H-6 bomber aircraft on what looked to be the United States’ Andersen Air Force Base located in the American territory of Guam.

Watch the video

The fabricated Guam footage did not specify that the US military facility was the target of this imaginary attack, nor was the striking resemblance between the two structures addressed by Chinese officials.

However, the timing of the release leaves little room for speculation, seeing as it occurred in the midst of the US Valiant Shield exercises — a biennial military training event that was taking place between the 14th and the 25th of September near the Western Pacific Island.

Brigadier General Jeremy Sloane –who served then as commander of the Andersen base– told the Reuters news agency that the video was an attempt by China to “coerce and antagonize” US Forces present in the region.

Coincidentally, Beijing had also been conducting military drills near Taiwan at the time in retaliation for a visit of a high-ranking official from the US Department of State to the neighboring country’s capital.

Collin Koh, a research fellow at Singapore’s Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, believes that the goal behind the propaganda film was to undermine the American sense of security, telling Reuters news:

“The video is meant to warn the Americans that even supposedly safe, rearward positions such as Guam may come under threat when conflicts over regional flashpoints, be it Taiwan or South China Sea, erupt.”

Beijing threats aimed towards specific US military structures have continued beyond the Guam video.

The blog THE AVIATIONIST reported on January 29, 2021, that the PLA (the Chinese People’s Liberation Army) had conducted a simulated airstrike on the USS Theodore Roosevelt, an aircraft carrier then stationed by the US in the South China Sea in response to China’s recent violations of Taiwanese territory.