Image shows old Hong Kong rally, not 'Beijing protest' in January 2024

Social media users have shared a video falsely claiming to show an image of a huge protest in the Chinese capital of Beijing in January 2024 in the wake of the country's economic slump. But the image is old and unrelated. While China's economy last year grew at one of its slowest rates in more than three decades, the image shows a 2019 demonstration in Hong Kong against a controversial proposal to amend the city's extradition law.

The video was shared on YouTube on January 21, 2024. 

"Xi Jinping is in trouble! Thousands of people protested in Beijing because of China's weakening economy," reads the Tagalog-language title of the video. 

It shows an image of demonstrators crowding an entire street at night, alongside overlaid text that read: "China in chaos! Millions of people out of jobs." 

The video was shared as the latest Chinese official figures showed its gross domestic product stood at 5.2 percent last year. 

While the reading is better than the three percent recorded in 2022, when strict zero-Covid curbs destroyed activity, it marks the weakest performance since 1990, excluding the pandemic years. 

China's economic slowdown is also likely to persist in the coming years as the Asian giant struggles with sagging productivity and a rapidly ageing population, according to the International Monetary Fund. 

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Screenshot of false post, taken February 1, 2024

The eight-minute video starts with a disclaimer that its content is "purely for entertainment purposes" and some information is "not fully verified", but some comments suggest users believed the Beijing protest image was genuine. 

"They should protest to kick him out of power instead, that's what the Chinese people need," one user said. 

"It's only right for them to do that," another commented. 

The claim was also shared elsewhere on YouTube here and on Facebook here and here

However, the picture in fact shows a protest in Hong Kong in 2019, not Beijing. 

2019 Hong Kong protest 

A Google reverse image search of the video's thumbnail led to a photo published by AFP on June 16, 2019.

Its caption reads: "Thousands of protesters dressed in black take part in a rally against a controversial extradition law proposal in Hong Kong on June 16, 2019."

The proposal would have allowed Hong Kong courts to transfer suspects to China to face trial. Organisers said some two million protesters took part in the rally to demand Carrie Lam, Hong Kong's chief executive at that time, to shelve the proposal and step down.

Lam's government withdrew the proposal in October 2019, but the protests morphed into wider demands for more democratic elements in the city's government and sparked some of the worst protest violence in decades. 

Below is a screenshot comparison of the false video (left) and the photo taken by AFP in 2019 (right): 

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Screenshot comparison of the false video (left) and the photo taken by AFP in 2019 (right)

AFP also geolocated the image to Queensway -- a major thoroughfare in central Hong Kong -- as seen in the Google Map Street View below (archived link). 

While AFP cannot find credible reports of a huge physical protest in Beijing in January 2024, Chinese netizens have reportedly aired their frustration at China's sluggish economy on the social media account of the US Embassy in Beijing on February 2 (archived link). 

Old news reports

Further keyword searches of the video's narrated text found it was lifted from The New York Times and Forbes 2023 articles about China's slow economic recovery (archived links here and here).

The video directly translated excerpts from the two English articles into Tagalog. 

The latter half of the video went on to claim the Philippine navy had fired warning shots at Chinese militia vessels near the Thitu island in the disputed South China Sea waters. 

The island -- which the Philippines refers to as the Pag-asa Island -- is an atoll about 480 kilometres (300 miles) west of the Philippine island of Palawan and more than 900 kilometres (559 miles) from China's nearest major landmass of Hainan Island.

China claims most of the South China Sea through which trillions of dollars worth of trade passes through the strategic waterway. 

Multiple keyword searches did not show any credible reports of the alleged maritime encounter. 

Google reverse image searches also found the video has misrepresented at least two old photos taken from media reports. 

The first photo -- which shows a navy sailor observing the sea with a pair of binoculars -- was published by state media Philippine News Agency on January 19, 2022 (archived link). 

The report said the Philippine navy has deployed patrol ships to secure the country's southern maritime border. It was credited to the Philippines' naval forces in western Mindanao. 

The second photo -- which shows an aerial view of maritime vessels -- was published by local broadcast media GMA News on July 7, 2023 (archived link). 

The report has quoted the Philippine military as saying Chinese vessels were spotted near the Sabina Shoal, another disputed atoll in the South China Sea. 

Below are screenshot comparisons of the false video (left) and the images published by Philippine News Agency and GMA News (right): 

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AFP has repeatedly debunked the YouTube channel for manipulating images related to the South China Sea such as here and here

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