Misleading: Irrelevant video misrepresented as Taiwanese supporting unification
On April 3, a Douyin video claimed to show citizens in Taiwan rallying in support of the self-governing island’s unification with mainland China.
The video, titled “Citizens of Taipei City, Taiwan Province, march to oppose Taiwan independence and strive for national unification” in Simplified Chinese, features various public gatherings with people waving Chinese flags or protesting. Chinese text overlays reinforce the pro-unification message.
The post has garnered over 219,000 likes, 5,000 comments, and 15,000 shares on Douyin, and similar content has circulated on other Chinese social media platforms since mid-2024. For example, some videos on Bilibili (archived here and here) and Baidu (archived here) had thousands of likes and hundreds of comments.
However, Annie Lab found that these claims are largely misleading. Of the 11 scenes in the compilation video on Douyin, eight are unrelated to unification rallies, instead depicting events in mainland China (showing celebrations or sports events), Germany, or the United States.
The origins of each footage are explained below. Scenes 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, and 10 were not shot in Taiwan, while scenes 3, 7, 8, 9, and 11 depict people in Taiwan, but the eighth and eleventh clips have nothing to do with the unification rallies.
Scene 1: Likely a national day celebration in mainland China (0:01-0:10)
In the opening shot, a truck with the sign “中国移动” (China Mobile) printed on the side, written in Simplified Chinese (not Traditional characters used in Taiwan), is visible. The car and the antenna resemble China Mobile’s mobile communication on-site support vehicle.
China Mobile does not operate in Taiwan, according to its official website (archived here).
We also see people in the video holding a leaflet with the slogan, also written in Simplified Chinese, “70年 砥砺奋进铸辉煌 新时代 牢记使命再出发 (Seventy years of striving for renewed glory; in the new era, remember our mission and forge ahead)”
Although Annie Lab cannot determine the exact context of this video, keywords from the slogan are closely associated with celebrations marking the 70th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China in 2019 (for example, here and here).
Scene 2: Village football competition (0:11-0:14)
A reverse image search and further keyword search led to a TikTok video (archived here) showing the same scene in higher resolution. Chinese text reads, “Taiwan is full of five-star red flags fluttering in the wind.”
However, a sign in Simplified Chinese “八开村足球队 (Bakai Village Football Team)” is visible on a building, alongside other village team names.
Another shot shows the sign “贵州村超 (Guizhou Village Super League),” indicating the footage was taken during a grassroots football competition in Rongjiang County, Guizhou Province.
A further search on Douyin found the original footage (archived here) discussing the competition’s popularity. The identical clip appears between the 0:21–0:23 mark.
Scene 4: Protest in Germany (0:18-0:20)
Clips from 0:18-0:20 show police in riot gear restraining protesters on the ground, which was filmed in Germany. A YouTube video (archived here), uploaded on Jan. 15, 2024, contains the same clips (0:37, 0:44-0:46).
Through machine translation, we learned that it shows a march in Berlin commemorating the 105th anniversary of the death of the founders of the German Communist Party and also supporting Palestine.
A report by online media People Dispatch described a march held on Jan. 14, 2024, in Berlin where pro-Palestine protestors joined the commemoration that turned into a clash with police.
At 1:34 in the YouTube video, protesters hold signs reading “SCHLUSS MIT BESATZUNGS TERROR!” — a slogan often seen at pro-Palestine events in Germany (for example, in November 2023 and October 2024).
Police in the video wear uniforms labeled “POLIZEI,” the German word for police. The uniforms match other photos showing German police.
Scene 5: National Day celebration in San Francisco (0:21-0:23)
A group of people dressed in red are seen holding China’s national flags in a march.
This footage was filmed in front of Yee’s Restaurant (archived here) located at 1131 Grant Avenue in San Francisco’s Chinatown, although the two Chinese characters on participants’ red T-shirts read “惠陽 (Huiyang),” a district in Huizhou, Guangdong province.
Annie Lab found a YouTube channel (archived here) of the Huiyang Clansmen Association in San Francisco, with a video (at 2:50; archived here), titled “The 75th National Day Parade of the People’s Republic of China,” showing the same group.
Scene 6: Chinese team at the 2024 Olympics (0:23-0:25)
Footage of people holding the Chinese national flag on a boat shows Chinese athletes arriving at the opening ceremony of the 2024 Paris Olympics, not people in Taiwan.
In the clip, they are wearing matching red jackets, white shirts, and white pants, identical to the uniforms worn by athletes in a CGTN photo of the ceremony. The boat’s orange seats also match.
Ma Long, a Chinese table tennis player and flag-bearer at the Games, appeared in one frame holding a large flag.
Scene 10: Flag-raising at Tiananmen Square (0:33-0:36)
Between 0:33 and 0:36, the video shows a crowd gathering at night, with many youngsters waving Chinese national flags. The footage is from Tiananmen Square in Beijing, not Taiwan, and likely shows people waiting for the sunrise flag-raising ceremony.
Annie Lab reporters identified the location as Tiananmen Square by matching the buildings and street lamps in the footage.
A search for “Tiananmen Square” on Douyin led to a video shot in Tiananmen Square at night before the National Day flag-raising ceremony last year, showing a nearby structure matching the one in the clip.
The street lamps in both videos resemble blooming flowers, and a row of long red structures appears in both.
Taiwan clips unrelated to unification rallies
Scene 8: Taiwan People’s Party assembly (0:25-0:31)
The clip between 0:25 and 0:31 shows a group of people escorting a man in a white jacket.
The man is the current chairman of the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), Huang Kuo-chang. The white jacket is official TPP merchandise.
The Chinese characters on the flag read “公平正義 (Fair and Justice).” A keyword search for this phrase and Huang’s name returned a YouTube video (archived here) by Taiwanese media United Daily News, showing the same scene from a different angle (0:06-0:32).
The post states the footage was taken at a Jan. 11 assembly in Taipei, in support of detained former party chair Ko Wen-je.
This rally had nothing to do with unification with the mainland, according to the report by Taipei Times and Central News Agency.
Scene 11: TPP rally in support of Ko Wen-je (0:37-0:38)
The segment from 0:37 to 0:38 also shows TPP supporters sitting on the ground, some holding placards with the slogan “綠色威權 司法不公 (green authoritarianism, judicial injustice)” accusing the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, often associated with color green, of judicial interference in the case of former party leader Ko.
A photo (archived here) published by Taiwanese media Newtalk shows many demonstrators holding the same signs at a rally in January.
A male voice, heard starting from 0:30 to 0:38, speaks in Mandarin that “Lai Ching-te is afraid to face it himself, so he sent the police to block Aiguo West Road.” Lai is Taiwan’s President.
The quote is unrelated to any protest supporting unification with China. It was taken from Huang Kuo-chang’s speech at the TPP rally on Jan. 11. We found the live broadcast and identified the same quote between 6:09:58-6:10:10 (archived here).
Unification rallies in Taiwan
Although much of the viral video features footage unrelated to unification protests, three scenes (0:14–0:17, 0:23–0:26, and 0:26) show such demonstrations.
Scene 3: Taiwan’s Unification Volunteer Army (0:14-0:17)
Individuals are seen holding banners with the words “統一義勇軍 (Unification Volunteer Army).” A keyword search on TikTok led to an account identifying itself as the “台灣統一義勇軍總司令 (Commander-in-Chief of Taiwan’s Unification Volunteer Army),” which uploaded the original footage (archived here).
The user 盧朝財 (Lu Chao-cai) wrote in his profile that he is “the Commander of Taiwan’s Unification Volunteer Army — the only patriot in Taiwan who has long opposed pro-independence movements on the streets.”
Scene 7: Taiwan People’s Communist Party event (0:26)
The clip at 0:26, which lasts less than a second, briefly shows a group of people wearing matching red vests and holding Chinese flags.
A reverse image search on Baidu led to another video compilation with longer footage of the same scene (0:04-0:05; archived here).
Participants are seen wearing jackets with the Chinese characters “台灣人民共產党 (Taiwan People’s Communist Party).”
The political party, founded in Taiwan in 2017 by Lin Te-wang (林德旺), regularly holds pro-China protests in Tainan, the southwestern coast city facing the Taiwan Strait, and releases red balloons for celebrations.
We found a Douyin video (archived here) posted on Oct. 1, 2022, featuring a vlogger in a white T-shirt and a cap, recording the party’s Chinese National Day celebration, who also appears in the misleading video.
A woman in a red vest and a yellow top is also visible, confirming that the event was filmed in Taiwan and hosted by pro-China supporters.
Scene 9: Unification Volunteer Army in Taipei (0:32-0:33)
In the ninth clip, people are seen marching with flags of the Unification Volunteer Army, a pro-China organization in Taiwan.
A sign of the Taipei Metro underground exit is visible in the clip. Through Google Maps street view, we identified the location as an area near Exit 3 of Taipei 101/World Trade Center Station.
Strait Daobao (archived here) and a YouTube video (archived here) reported on the Taipei rally held by the group to celebrate the founding of the PRC in 2023 and support unification.
