Video of Taiwanese retired general 'praising Chinese army' manipulated with AI
- Published on November 20, 2024 at 09:53
- 3 min read
- By Carina CHENG, AFP Hong Kong
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"The People's Liberation Army's Joint Sword - 2024B military drills were really impressive," Taiwanese retired army general Yu appears to say in Mandarin in a short clip shared on Facebook on October 16.
"Objectively speaking, I, Yu Pei-chen, was seriously impressed."
Yu then appears to say he believes China's army could invade Taiwan at any time and that he would be the "first to surrender".
The traditional Chinese post repeats the claim.
The video was shared online after China ended a day of military drills around Taiwan, codenamed "Joint Sword – 2024B" on October 14, in which it deployed fighter jets and warships in what Beijing said was a "stern warning" to "separatist" forces on the self-ruled island (archived link).
Beijing has not ruled out using force to bring Taiwan under its control and the October drills represented its fourth round of large-scale war games in just over two years.
The same clip of Yu also surfaced on Chinese social media platforms Douyin and Weibo.
While some social media users pointed out the video was altered with AI, others left nationalistic comments that suggested they believed it was a real video.
"This a wise man who can recognise the current trend," read one comment.
"This is a real man! He's showing his patriotism from now," another said.
In fact, the original footage shows Yu speaking on a political commentary television show in May, months before the Chinese military drills in October.
The Taiwan FactCheck Center also debunked the claim in a report which quoted Yu rejecting the video as "fake" and saying it misused old footage of him on a TV show alongside an AI-generated soundbite (archived link).
Political TV show
A reverse image search on Google using keyframes from the video found a YouTube video posted on May 28, 2024 by the official channel for Taiwanese political commentary show "94 Customer Complaints" (archived link).
The episode, which was more than an hour long, covered several topics, including protests against a controversial plan to reform Taiwan's parliament, the popularity of the Taiwan's People Party and a National Day quote from Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te about cross-strait relations.
Yu appeared in the final segment, where he discussed a report by the US-based Council of Foreign Relations think tank, titled "Why China Would Struggle to Invade Taiwan" (archived link).
The manipulated clip appears to have been taken from around the video's 53:23 to 1:00:32 mark.
Below is a screenshot comparison of the manipulated clip (left) and the original video on YouTube (right):
In the segment, Yu in fact refutes claims that China could defeat Taiwan in a matter of two to four days, arguing that Taiwan has been preparing for a potential war with Beijing for a long time.
He goes on to list various factors, including the Taiwanese military's knowledge of its coastline and the shallow waters surrounding its major ports, that would prevent China from attacking by sea.
Yu quotes the think tank report, which said a Chinese amphibious invasion of Taiwan "would likely have to dwarf D-Day" during World War Two in scale to be successful.
At no point does the former general say he is impressed by China's military prowess or that he would surrender immediately to an invading force.
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