Old protest video and photos resurface alongside fabricated 'anti-Korea protest in China' claim

"Anti-Korean protest in China," reads a Korean-language Facebook post on January 11, 2024, which features the video and the two photos.

The post goes on to say Chinese people "should not be befriended" and "should be kicked out of South Korea".  

The two neighbouring countries have clashed often, with unfavourable views of China among Koreans rising to a record high in 2022 over cultural appropriation and history (archived link). 

Meanwhile, South Korean news reports in May 2023 noted that Chinese media were "fanning anti-Korean sentiment" following President Yoon Suk Yeol's move towards closer ties with the United States and Japan, as all three countries experience rising tensions with China and North Korea (archived link).

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Screenshot of the misleading post shared on Facebook. Captured January 12, 2024

Similar posts were also shared on Facebook here, here and here.

But AFP found no reports of anti-Korea demonstrations in China on January 11 and reverse image searches on Google found all the visuals shared in the posts are old. 

Anti-Japan rally

The video clip corresponds to a section of AFP footage of protestors in Zhengzhou, China, holding an anti-Japanese rally in September 2012.

Protestors in several cities across China took to the streets to demand Japan return a set of uninhabited islands in the East China Sea, called the Senkaku Islands by the Japanese and Diaoyu Islands in Chinese, according to reports here and here (archived links here and here).

Below is a screenshot comparison of the footage shared in the false post (left) and the original AFP video (right):

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Screenshot comparison of the footage shared in the false post (left) and the original AFP video (right)

A close examination of the footage shows protesters holding banners written in simplified Chinese that read "protect Diaoyu Islands" and "get out of Diaoyu Islands, reject Japanese products".

One figure can also be seen wearing a shirt with a black X over the Japanese flag.

AFP and other international news agencies also published photos of the Zhengzhou protests in reports here and here (archived links here and here).

Altered flag photo

Further reverse image searches found the image of people burning a flag has been altered from this photo published by British newspaper The Telegraph on September 17, 2012 (archived link).

"Protesters laugh and take pictures of a burned Japanese national flag during an anti-Japan protest in Wuhan, Hubei province, China," the caption reads, crediting the photo to news agency Reuters. 

Below is a screenshot comparison of the altered image (left) and the picture published by The Telegraph (right):

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Screenshot comparison of the altered photo (left) and the picture published by The Telegraph (right)

The rising sun symbol in the Japanese flag has been altered to make it appear like the yin-and-yang symbol seen in the South Korean flag (archived link). 

However, it is missing the black trigrams in the four corners of the genuine South Korean flag, as shown in the comparison below:

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Comparison between the altered image (left) and the South Korean national flag (right), with the area missing the black trigrams marked by AFP

AFP also captured a similar photo of a burning Japanese flag in Wuhan during the protest (archived link).

Indonesia protest

The third image shared in the false posts corresponds to a photo published by a local Indonesian news site Bidik Banten on December 20, 2013 (archived link).

The accompanying report states protesters in Banten, a province near the capital Jakarta, trampled and burned the Korean flag after they were barred from entering a mosque attached to a steel factory set up as a joint venture with South Korea (archived link).

They had been demanding the company hire more locals and for Korean workers to be isolated from Indonesians to "avoid cultural friction", Bidik Banten reported at the time (archived link).

Below is a screenshot comparison of the image in the false post (left) and the photo published by Bidik Banten (right):

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Screenshot comparison of the image in the false post (left) and the photo published by Bidik Banten (right)

The protest at the steel company was reported by another Indonesian news site here, which also noted the protesters trampled and burned the Korean flag (archived link).