This video does not show 'Chinese soldiers preparing to attack Indonesia'
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on October 5, 2023 at 11:41
- Updated on October 5, 2023 at 11:44
- 5 min read
- By AFP Indonesia
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The video has been viewed more than 1,700 times after it was shared here on TikTok on September 14, 2023.
At the start of the video, a female narrator can be heard saying: "World War III danger. China has readied 140,000 soldiers to attack Indonesia."
The footage then shows different clips of military parades, as well as a military official delivering a speech in Chinese, with purported Indonesian subtitles that read in part: "To respond to a conflict between China and Indonesia. And as an anticipation of World War III, we put our military ready for World War III or to fight Indonesia. Around 140,000 soldiers are on alert. "
Indonesian-language sticker text on the video says: "Beware!!" and "This is all because of Joko Widodo," referring to the country's president who has been pushing China's investment since he took office in 2014.
Indonesia has a history of anti-Chinese sentiments, which have been amplified by misinformation that spread on social media platforms (archived links here and here).
The same video has been viewed more than 600 times after it was shared with a similar claim elsewhere on TikTok here and here, on Facebook here and here, and on YouTube here.
However, the claim is false.
At the six-second mark, the video shows a military official delivering a speech in Chinese.
A reverse image search on Google found that the footage was actually filmed when General Wei Fenghe, then Chinese defence minister, took part in the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore on June 2, 2019 (archived links here and here).
His speech was titled: "China and International Security Cooperation" (archived link).
In the first 43 seconds of the false video, the Indonesian-language subtitles of Wei's speech read: "To respond the conflict between China and Indonesia, and anticipate there will be World War 3, we will prepare our military to get ready for World War III or fight Indonesia. Around 140,000 troops are on alert."
However, the subtitles misrepresented what the Chinese official actually said.
Translated from Chinese to English, Wei actually said: "If anyone dares to split Taiwan from China, the Chinese military has no choice."
Then, he continued saying: "30 years of the leadership of the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] have proven that China has undergone major changes.
"How can we say that China did not handle the Tiananmen incident properly? There is a conclusion of that incident, that is, that incident was political turbulence and the central government took measures to stop the turbulence," he said, referring to the Tiananmen Square crackdown on June 4, 1989 (archived link).
According to the organiser's English transcripts of Wei's speech and the subsequent question-and-answer session, Wei did not mention anything about Indonesia (archived links here and here).
Below is a screenshot comparison of Wei's speech in the misleading video (left) and the original source (right):
Wei's speech was interspersed with different military clips -- none of which were related to the claim about "140,000 Chinese troops prepared to attack Indonesia".
The scene at 13-second mark of the false video, which shows thousands of soldiers actually shows a military assembly in Hubei Province in 2018, when Chinese President Xi Jinping addressed 7,000 service personnel (archived link).
At the 21-second mark, the video shows soldiers from a closer angle. The soldiers were in fact part of an October 2019 military parade in Tiananmen Square, Beijing, to celebrate 70 years of the Chinese Communist Party's rule (archived link).
Below are screenshot comparisons between scenes in the misleading video (left) and the original sources (right):
Jeeps are seen passing before marching soldiers at the 31-second mark of the clip. This footage is from a military parade held at the Zhurihe training base, in China's Inner Mongolia region, to mark the 90th anniversary of People's Liberation Army in July 2017 (archived link).
Military vehicles in front soldiers at the 41-second mark also came from a clip of the 2018 military assembly in Hubei.
The clip of Xi shaking hands with soldiers at the 1:21 mark of the false video is from the moment when he inspected a joint battle command centre in April 2016 (archived link).
Below are screenshot comparisons between scenes in the misleading video (left) and the original sources (right):
Other scenes in the video, such as Xi inspecting troops and soldiers clapping, are taken, respectively, from the 2017 parade at the Zhurihe training base and Xi's 2018 visit in Hubei (archived links here and here).
China and Indonesia are not at war.
In July 2023, the leaders of the two nations expressed commitment to deepen ties at a meeting in the Chinese city of Chengdu (archived link).
Two months later, while attending the ASEAN summit in Jakarta, Chinese Premier Li Qiang joined Indonesian Senior Minister Luhut Pandjaitan to ride the new high-speed train -- part of China-backed infrastructure projects in the Southeast Asian country (archived link).
AFP previously debunked false claims that China sent soldiers to Indonesia and that local police officers spoke Chinese.
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