The video, which appears to show Lee speaking in Chinese, was shared on TikTok on June 26, 2024.
“The US cannot beat China, and it cannot outdo China. The Americans know this very well. And yet they are trying to use the Philippines to provoke a potential conflict with China,” he seems to be saying.
“No friend will allow their country to be destroyed like this in the face of tens of millions of displaced Ukrainians.”
Text in traditional Chinese overlaid on the video reads: “Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has a word of warning for the people of Taiwan.”
Screenshot of the fake post
The video went viral on Facebook and TikTok after the United States approved hundreds of millions of dollars in arms sales to Taiwan in June as the island faces pressure from China and seeks to strengthen ties with friendly nations.
Beijing claims Taiwan as part of its territory and says it will never renounce the use of force to bring it under Chinese control.
Taiwan's Defense Ministry said the purchases would enable Taiwan to respond quickly to enemy threats, citing Beijing's “frequent military operations” around the island.
The video also came after violent clashes between Chinese and Filipino sailors in the disputed South China Sea.
It was the latest in an escalating standoff between Beijing and Manila in the strategically located waterway and has raised concerns that the United States, Manila's mutual defence partner, could become drawn into the conflict.
Singapore, which has strong security ties with Washington and robust economic ties with Beijing, has previously said countries should not be forced to choose between China and the United States.
Fabricated statement
In a statement, Lee said “deepfake” videos shared online showed him “appearing to comment on international relations, foreign leaders and other subjects” (archive link).
A spokesman for Singapore's Prime Minister's Office also told AFP that the video was “fake”.
The original video, which shows Lee delivering a speech to mark Singapore's National Day in 2019, was posted to YouTube by the Prime Minister's Office (archive link).
Below are screenshots comparing the edited video (left) to the original video (right).
Screenshot comparison of the edited video (left) and the original video (right)
In his August 18, 2019 speech, Li did not mention the U.S.'s diplomatic relations with Taiwan or the Philippines.
The official record of the speech released by the Singapore Prime Minister's Office bears this out (archive link).
The edited video appears to have originated from a Chinese social media account that regularly posts manipulated content.
The account name of the Chinese platform Xiaohongshu, which translates to “Beyond the Big World of AI,” is superimposed on the video (archive link).
The company has previously shared a variety of edited videos using images of celebrities, as well as tutorials on how to create AI-generated videos (archive link).
The video was also fact-checked by Taiwanese fact-checking organisations Mygopen and the Taiwan Fact Checking Centre (archive links here and here).
