The image was cooked up to herald 68 years of the modern Chinese navy, which was created after Mao's communists defeated Chiang Kai-Shek's nationalists in 1949

China's defence ministry has been left red-faced after a poster celebrating the 68th birthday of the People's Liberation Army Navy was exposed as containing American ships and Russian planes.

The poster showed an image of the Liaoning, the country's first aircraft carrier - which was itself built in the Soviet Union and bought from Russia - and declared: 'Happy birthday, People's Liberation Army Navy!'

But military experts soon spotted that whoever had designed the poster had dropped several major clangers.

The jet which appears to be taking off from the deck of the carrier is in fact a Russian MiG-35 fighter aircraft, not a Chinese plane.

And worse still, considering the tensions between Beijing and Washington, the ships seen shadowing the Liaoning were US amphibious assault ships, not Chinese vessels.

Even the three Chinese fighter jets at the top of the poster are wrong. They are J-10s, which are used by the air force, rather than J-15s which are designed to take off and land on carriers.

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The image used China's first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, but a designer had Photoshopped in a Russian jet and two American ships instead of Chinese vessels

The South China Morning Post reported the poster had been widely mocked by users of the social media site Weibo.

One Weibo user wrote: 'The officials are wrong! Go die! We are so patriotic in vain!'

'This poster is the standard of a street photocopy shop,' said another.

The Liaoning (pictured), the carrier which featured in the poster, was actually built in the Soviet Union and was known as the Varyag until it was sold to China in 1998

Ironically the botched poster, which appeared on the defence ministry's own blog, appeared only days before China launched its first home-grown aircraft carrier.

The 50,000-ton carrier, based on a Soviet Kuznetsov class design, was towed from its dockyard in the northern port city of Dalian yesterday.

But the unnamed carrier's launch was almost eclipsed by the fiasco over the poster.

The row about the bungled poster almost overshadowed the launch yesterday of China's first domestically designed and built aircraft carrier. The ship (pictured), which has no name, is due to come into service in 2020

Defence ministry spokesman Yang Yujun said he was 'sincerely sorry' the image used was 'not meticulous'.

'The carelessness was with the editor, the responsibility is on the shoulders of the leadership,' he said ominously.

Chinese media website Huanqiu said it was the first time the defence ministry had ever admitted such a mistake and the South China Morning Post even claimed they had managed to turn a PR disaster into a positive story.

One Weibo user wrote: 'This is the right way to deal with the public. Refusing to admit a mistake or deleting messages are not as good as honestly admitting a mistake and bravely accepting responsibility…Really hope the government can understand this principle at all levels.'