TOKYO – Footage of a Japanese naval destroyer that circulated on Chinese social media is likely genuine, Tokyo’s Defence Ministry said on May 9, after initial speculation the video may have been generated by artificial intelligence.

No obvious military activity can be seen in the clip, which appears to show the docked Izumo helicopter destroyer.

According to officials, footage “purportedly shot by a drone” was first uploaded to Chinese video-sharing platform Bilibili on March 26. It has since been viewed around 187,000 times on the platform, and has also proliferated on Douyin, China’s version of TikTok, and on a Chinese-language X account.

“It is likely that footage in question was actually shot,” a Japanese Defence Ministry official told reporters on May 9, after an analysis.

Flying drones over military facilities in Japan is illegal.

Kyodo News, an English-language Japanese media outlet, quoted the purported owner of the video as saying that he did it for fun.

The unnamed person declined to reveal when the drone took off and where it landed. The man, who left Japan after taking the video and is currently in China, said he would not perform the illegal act again.

“I do not have intention to provoke international conflict. I just did it for fun,” he said.

The Japanese Defence Ministry official said drones could cause significant disruption to the country’s security and defence. “From this standpoint, we take the outcome of our analysis very seriously,” the official said.

The official declined to comment on whether the ministry had detected the drone’s intrusion, citing security concerns, adding that it will seek to prevent a recurrence by using electronic jamming and operating anti-drone devices with higher capabilities. AFP