Yinhe incident

The Yinhe incident (Chinese: 银河号事件) was a claim made in 1993 by the United States government that the China-based regular container ship Yinhe (银河, "Milky Way") was carrying materials for chemical weapons to Iran. The United States Navy forced the Yinhe to stop in the international waters of the Indian Ocean for three weeks. The Chinese government subsequently agreed to have the ship searched in Saudi Arabia by a joint Saudi-U.S. team. The final inspection report, signed by U.S. government representatives, concluded that "the complete inspection of all the containers aboard the Yinhe showed conclusively [that the chemicals] were not among the ship's cargo". Even though the Chinese were proven innocent, the U.S. government refused to apologize "because the United States had acted in good faith on intelligence from a number of sources, all of which proved to be wrong."

The Yinhe was a Chinese regular container ship that ran on a fixed schedule between Tianjin Xinggang and Kuwait. Its scheduled port visits included Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore, Jakarta, Dubai and Daman and Diu. It belonged to the China Ocean Shipping Corporation (Chinese: 中远集团), and had maintained a perfect on-time schedule before the incident.

In late July 1993, the United States alleged that a Chinese ship was carrying chemical weapon materials to Abbas Harbor, Iran, citing unspecified intelligence provided by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). At this time, the Yinhe had already departed China and was on its way to Kuwait. U.S. officials later claimed that secret diplomatic efforts were made from this point on.

On August 9, 1993, China disclosed to the media that the U.S. Navy was harassing the Yinhe in international waters, and declared officially that the ship did not carry any chemical weapons materials. The U.S. government dismissed the declaration and threatened to search the ship immediately.

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