False claim of 'protests in Beijing' spreads ahead of Chinese military parade

The videos, showing people lying down in Tiananmen Square and a group rushing into the square, were shared on YouTube and TikTok on August 18 and July 20, 2025.

Superimposed traditional Chinese text on the YouTube video, which was viewed more than 460,000 times, says there are "a hundred million people on hunger strike at Tiananmen Square demanding the authoritarian Chinese Communist Party (CCP) step down".

It links the protests to the ruling party "wasting taxpayers' money on a military parade, rather than reunifying Taiwan".

Text on the TikTok clip, which has been viewed more than 1.4 million times, says "200,000 Beijing students stormed Tiananmen Square", also in protest about the military parade.

The "military parade" referred to in the posts will take place in Beijing on September 3 to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II (archived link).

Officials say China will unveil a slate of new domestically produced military hardware to showcase its "powerful capability to prevail in modern war".

President Xi Jinping is expected to inspect troops at Tiananmen Square, with his Russian and North Korean counterparts -- Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un -- and other world leaders likely to be in attendance.

Image

Screenshots of the false posts captured on September 1, 2025, with red Xs added by AFP

The videos were also shared in similar Facebook, YouTube and X posts.

But as of September 1, there have been no official reports of mass protests against the planned parade in China, where any and all opposition to the ruling Communist Party and anything seen as a threat to the civil order is swiftly quashed.

A reverse image search on Google using keyframes from the clip of people lying in Tiananmen Square led to a higher-quality version posted on Douyin on July 14 (archived link).

Its caption says it shows people "lying around in the heart of the motherland", though there is no mention of a hunger strike or protest. No chanting or slogans can be heard in the background either.

Image

Screenshot of the falsely shared video (left) and the Douyin clip (right)

A keyword search on Douyin led to similar clips with captions saying they show people waiting for the daily flag-raising ceremony (archived here and here).

Moreover, elements of the falsely shared video do not correspond to footage of Tiananmen Square in the weeks leading up to the September 3 military parade.

Footage posted by state broadcaster CCTV of the event's second rehearsal, held on the evening of August 16, shows seating and giant screens have been erected in preparation for the parade but these features are absent in the circulating footage (archived link).

An August 16 video report from Hong Kong's TVB News also shows large cranes on Tiananmen Square that are missing in the falsely shared clip (archived link).

Image

Screenshot comparisons of the falsely shared clip (left), CCTV footage (top right) and a TVB report (bottom right)

A separate reverse image search on Baidu found the second clip, of people rushing into Tiananmen Square, was published on Weibo by the Communist Party-backed People's Daily newspaper on May 2, 2023 (archived link).

The falsely shared clip is a mirrored version of this footage.

Its caption reads: "In the early morning of April 30, Tiananmen Square was packed with tourists from across the country waiting to see the flag-raising ceremony.

"As soon as the opening hours arrived, visitors began to sprint to get close to the national flag."

Image

Screenshot comparison of the falsely shared clip (left) and the People's Daily video (right)

AFP earlier debunked another false claim related to the September 3 military parade.