Taiwan faces the constant threat of invasion by China, but footage of actors loading up an artillery weapon has circulated in false posts claiming it shows a genuine Taiwanese military drill. The performance demonstrating the use of a howitzer takes place in a former military facility that has since been converted into a tourist attraction.<\/h3>\n
“Taiwanese soldiers stationed on Kinmen Island are practising how to attack the Chinese mainland,” reads a November 3, 2024 post on X<\/a>, referring to the Taipei-administered islands<\/a> just a few kilometres from the Chinese coastline\u00a0(archived link<\/a>).<\/p>\n Screenshot of the false post, captured on March 3, 2025<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n China and Taiwan have been governed separately<\/a> since Mao Zedong’s communist army won a civil war and sent the opposition nationalist forces fleeing across the strait in 1949 (archived link<\/a>).<\/p>\n Beijing has maintained ever since that the island is part of its territory, and has not ruled out using force to bring it under control.<\/p>\n The video also surfaced in similar posts\u00a0on X<\/a> and Douyin as\u00a0Beijing has ramped up\u00a0deployment<\/a> of fighter jets and naval vessels around Taiwan (archived link<\/a>).<\/p>\n But it shows a reenactment of how a howitzer is used at a tourist attraction in Kinmen.<\/p>\n Keyword searches<\/a> found an October 2021 report<\/a> from Chinese broadcaster Phoenix TV about mainland Chinese women with Taiwanese spouses who worked as historical reenactors performing for tourists in Kinmen (archived link<\/a>).<\/p>\n The performance seen in the circulating video corresponds to the one in the Phoenix TV report.<\/p>\n Further searches found the performances are held at Kinmen’s\u00a0Shishan Howitzer Front<\/a>, which was converted into a tourist site in 2011, according to a Kinmen County Department of Tourism website (archived link<\/a>).<\/p>\n