As Taiwan observed its national day on October 10,\u00a0social media posts circulated <\/span>footage falsely claiming they showed how China and Taiwan celebrated a revolution that overthrew the Chinese imperial dynasty more than a century ago. The clips in fact depict a national day procession in Beijing in 2019 and a drag queen performance in Taipei in 2024.<\/p>\n “Mainland commemoration of the Xinhai Revolution VS Taiwan Province commemoration of the Xinhai Revolution. Such an eyesore,” reads the simplified Chinese X post<\/a> shared on October 10 when Taiwan marked its national day.<\/p>\n The post includes two clips.\u00a0The video at the top — with the overlaid text “China Mainland” — shows soldiers marching in front of a portrait of revolutionary Sun Yat-s<\/span>en while the clip at the bottom with the text “Taiwan” superimposed showed drag queens performing.<\/p>\n Screenshot of the false X post captured on October 13, 2025, with a red cross added by AFP<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n Taipei’s annual celebrations on October 10 marked<\/a> the 114th anniversary of the toppling of China’s Qing dynasty — called the\u00a0Xinhai Revolution<\/a> — and the subsequent founding of the Republic of China, which modern-day Taiwan still uses as its official name\u00a0(archived here<\/a> and here<\/a>).<\/p>\n China — which mostly uses simplified Chinese as its written text —\u00a0<\/span>considers self-ruled<\/a>, democratic Taiwan as part of its territory, and Beijing has not excluded the use of force to take it (archived link<\/a>).<\/p>\n Comments indicated some users<\/span> were disappointed with how Taiwan commemorated the Xinhai Revolution.<\/p>\n “Total disgrace. China shows respect and power. The other one shows confusion and total destruction of cultural values,” one left a comment in English.<\/p>\n Another comment in simplified Chinese reads: “Sun Yat-sen is coughing up blood from the portrait.”<\/p>\n The video<\/a> was shared alongside similar claims<\/a> on TikTok<\/a> and Weibo<\/a>.<\/p>\n But the clips are unrelated.<\/p>\n A Baidu reverse image search<\/a> of key frames<\/a> of the top “China Mainland” clip led to the screenshots of a\u00a02019 military parade<\/a> in Beijing (archived link<\/a>).<\/p>\n The logo on the top left corner has a watermark of Chinese national broadcaster CCTV<\/a> (archived link<\/a>). However, the full video of the procession does not appear on its official website.<\/p>\n A further keyword search<\/a> led to a live video uploaded by British media Guardian News<\/a> on YouTube on October 1, 2019 (archived link<\/a>).<\/p>\n The caption reads: “China marks the 70th anniversary of its founding on National Day, where President Xi Jinping will inspect the troops along Chang’an Avenue in the Chinese capital. More than a hundred thousand citizens will parade past the Tiananmen Gate with floats.”<\/p>\n2019 Beijing procession<\/h2>\n