‘Duped by Trump’: U.S. Taunted Over Carl Vinson Aircraft Carrier Tale

Criticism rises after the U.S. Navy says it hadn’t sent the USS Carl Vinson directly to North Korea after all

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence spoke to American and Japanese service members on the flight deck of the USS Ronald Reagan in Japan on Wednesday. Photo: REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon

The revelation that the Pentagon didn’t send the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier, as U.S. officials had said, directly toward North Korea as a stern message to Pyongyang over its nuclear and missile programs sparked ridicule in some corners of Asia and wariness in others.

In North Korea, the U.S. Navy’s admission that the Carl Vinson was actually thousands of miles away on exercises off Australia’s coast and won’t arrive at the Korean Peninsula until next week prompted the state-run news service to say Washington “now bluffs that it was a ‘warning’ act” against the country.

In South Korea, Hong Joon-pyo, the presidential candidate from former​ leader Park Geun-hye’s ruling party, said it was inappropriate to judge before receiving final confirmation of the Carl Vinson’s whereabouts. But, in an interview, he said: “What [President Donald Trump] said was very important for the national security of South Korea. If that was a lie, then during Trump’s term, South Korea will not trust whatever Trump says.”​

​He also said that, in light of Mr. Trump’s recent military strikes on Syria and ​Afghanistan, “it seems to me that Trump is a person who takes responsibility and action based on what he says.”

In China, the false Carl Vinson narrative prompted some jibes on social and news media. Some were directed at foreign media and others at the Trump administration’s attempt to block Pyongyang from developing the capability of launching a nuclear-armed missile to the U.S. mainland.

“If the U.S. announcement on the Carl Vinson’s deployment to the Korean Peninsula is merely bluster and verbal games, then Trump’s approach to North Korea would fade into an Obama rerun,” a user named Wang Yingrun wrote on his verified Weibo microblog. Without the resolve to use military strength, he wrote, “Fatty the Third”—a Chinese nickname for North Korean leader Kim Jong Un—“will never return to dialogue.”

Chinese news portal Guancha.cn declared: “Media around the entire world have been duped by Trump again!” The Global Times, a nationalistic tabloid, took that observation a step further, saying American, South Korean and Japanese media had committed a “major screw-up.”

Ni Lexiong, a Shanghai-based commentator on military affairs, said Mr. Trump appeared to use claims of the Carl Vinson’s deployment as a feint in trying to dissuade North Korea from conducting a nuclear test.

“Trump and the media jointly performed a modern-day ‘Empty Fort Strategy,’ ” Mr. Ni wrote on his Weibo microblog, referring to a reverse-psychology ploy described in the ancient Chinese military treatise, “Thirty-Six Stratagems.”

A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman declined to comment on the Carl Vinson, only saying that Beijing is in close contact with the U.S. and that all sides should de-escalate tensions. “We don’t want to see any conflict,” he said.

In Japan, Prof. Narushige Michishita of the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies said regardless of whether the U.S. intended to deceive or the narrative was a miscommunication, it looked bad for the White House.

“At a time of emergency, disinformation could be used as a tactic, but if the U.S. president spreads disinformation in peacetime like now, it would hurt the credibility of the U.S.,” he said.

During a trip to Japan, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence on Wednesday visited the USS Ronald Reagan, the only American aircraft carrier permanently stationed abroad. Mr. Pence didn’t refer to the Carl Vinson in a speech he made on the ship’s deck to mainly U.S. military members. But he thanked the Ronald Reagan’s crew ahead of what he called their “imminent deployment.”

The carrier, based at the Yokosuka port, just south of Tokyo, is currently undergoing maintenance and will likely head out of port in the next few weeks, U.S. Navy officials said. They declined to discuss its planned movements.

Mr. Pence also repeated warnings to North Korea against challenging Mr. Trump, saying any use of military force would be met with an overwhelming response. He said the U.S. would continue to use economic and diplomatic pressure against Pyongyang.

The Carl Vinson incident was barely reported on by the Japanese media. Japan’s Defense Ministry declined to comment. Chief cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, the top Japanese government spokesman, declined to comment on the Vinson, but said “the Japanese government appreciates that the U.S. is taking the position that every single option is on the table” in respect to North Korea’s threat.

The U.S. Pacific Command on Tuesday said the Vinson is now heading toward the Western Pacific as ordered after a shortened training exercise with the Australian Navy. The statement described the move as a “prudent measure.”​​

Write to Chun Han Wong at chunhan.wong@wsj.com, Jonathan Cheng at jonathan.cheng@wsj.com and Alastair Gale at alastair.gale@wsj.com

Popular on WSJ