FALSE: Photo shows Chinese fishing boats in Philippine waters

Agence France-Presse

This is AI generated summarization, which may have errors. For context, always refer to the full article.

FALSE: Photo shows Chinese fishing boats in Philippine waters
No, this photo does not show Chinese fishing boats in Philippine waters

A post shared by a Facebook group with over 200,000 followers claims to show numerous Chinese fishing boats which it says are in Philippine waters due to Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte. A reverse image search found that the image was taken by the Reuters news agency in China 4 years before Duterte was elected president.

The post, which has been shared more than 200 times since it was published January 14, contains a photograph of multiple fishing boats flying the Chinese flag and says: “Look, lots and lots of Chinese fishing vessels are fishing inside our EEZ.”

An EEZ is a zone of up to 200 nautical miles from the country’s coast, where it has sovereign rights over the resources.

“I’m sure even Indonesian President JOKO WIDODO is angry at Du30 for not defending our Exclusive Economic Zone!” the post says.

Du30 is a reference to Duterte.

“Is Du30 a coward President or a traitor President or both ??” the post says.

Here is a screenshot of the post:

(Screenshot of Facebook post)

A reverse image search of the photo traced the image of the boats back to a gallery of pictures from international news agency Reuters. The photo of boats is the 11th image in the gallery.

Here is a screenshot of the photo:

(Screenshot of image)

The caption says the boats were leaving Shenjiawan port in Zhoushan, a city in the Chinese province of Zhejiang.

The photo was taken on September 17, 2012, four years before Duterte became president in June 2016. Here is an AFP story about his swearing in.

Since becoming president, Duterte has pursued warmer ties with China, most notably by halting a standoff between Manila and Beijing over claims to the resource-rich South China Sea. Here is an AFP story on the changes. – Rappler.com

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