Videos circulating online claimed to show mass protests in Tiananmen Square against the Chinese government, but officials and fact-checkers say the clips were misleading.
Ahead of a September 3 military parade in Beijing marking the 80th anniversary of World War II’s end, social media posts in Chinese and English falsely described ordinary activities in the square as anti-government demonstrations.
On YouTube, a video viewed more than 460,000 times featured superimposed text claiming “a hundred million people on hunger strike at Tiananmen Square demanding the authoritarian Chinese Communist Party step down.” Another clip on TikTok, seen over 1.4 million times, asserted that “200,000 Beijing students stormed Tiananmen Square” in protest against military spending rather than reunifying Taiwan.
In reality, the footage shows people securing spots to watch the square’s daily flag-raising ceremony. Reverse image searches traced the video to a higher-quality version posted on Douyin in July, with captions describing participants “lying around in the heart of the motherland” without reference to protests, slogans, or hunger strikes. Other clips on Douyin corroborated that attendees were simply waiting for the routine morning event.
Elements in the viral videos also do not match the square’s appearance ahead of the upcoming parade. State broadcaster CCTV footage of a rehearsal on August 16 shows seating and giant screens erected for the ceremony—features absent in the online clips. A Hong Kong TVB News report from the same day highlighted large cranes on the square that do not appear in the misleading videos.
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China is preparing to showcase new domestically produced military equipment during the parade, with President Xi Jinping expected to inspect troops alongside international leaders including Russia’s Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un.
No credible reports have confirmed any mass protests linked to the parade. Experts note that organized opposition to the Communist Party is typically suppressed quickly, making large-scale demonstrations unlikely.
Fact-checkers caution that while social media can amplify dramatic narratives, the Tiananmen Square videos are an example of how ordinary events can be misrepresented as politically charged incidents.