China Tanks Protecting Banks / Tiananmen Square 2.0

About

China Tanks Protecting Banks, also known as Tiananmen Square 2.0, refers to an event in July 2022 captured in a viral video of Chinese tanks in the city of Zhengzhou, Henan parading in front of a bank, purportedly protecting it from protestors, similar to the 1989 Tiananmen Square event. As the video circulated on social media in mid-2022, it was labeled as misinformation and fake news due to its location actually being in Rizhou City, Shandong and also only showing a standard military procedure. However, the video alluded to overarching protests actually occurring in China in July of that year regarding fraud that was allegedly committed by Zhengzhou's People's Bank of China that resulted in depositors' funds and life savings being frozen and lost.

History

On July 10th, 2022, protestors from across China's Henan province organized in front of Zhengzhou's People's Bank of China to protest fraud they believed occurred when the funds in their rural banks were frozen in April 2022, reportedly resulting in life savings being lost.^[1] Leading up to the protests, the Chinese government had not communicated with them about compensation and tried using health code apps meant to prevent the spread of COVID-19 to prevent them from traveling.^[1] However, protestors still reached the city on July 10th and organized outside the bank where they were met with anonymously associated men in white shirts who attacked them, similar to the white-shirt-wearing authorities present at the 2014 protests in Hong Kong.

Videos surfaced on Chinese social media of the protests that spread to Western social media on the same day. For instance, on July 10th, the Twitter^[2] account RadioGenova tweeted a video of chaos ensuing in front of the bank, earning roughly 5 million views and 14,400 likes in 10 days (shown below).

Citizens storm the Bank of China in Zhengzhou over bank account freezes. Banks froze millions of dollars in deposits last April, simply explaining to savers that they need to upgrade their internal systems. Since then, customers have not received any kind of communication. pic.twitter.com/XS9zuXRuEK

— RadioGenova (@RadioGenova) July 10, 2022

Additionally, news outlets like the New York Times^[1] and The Washington Post^[3] covered the bank protests happening in Zhengzhou going into the days that followed.

Tanks Protecting China Banks Misinformation

On July 20th, 2022, Redditor Picoton shared a video to /r/Bitcoin^[4] that claimed to be "tanks protecting banks because the Bank of China (Henan branch) declared that 'people's savings in their branch are now 'investment products' and can't be withdrawn.'" In one day, the Reddit post received roughly 5,700 upvotes (shown below).

This led to the Twitter^[5] account of WallStreetBets sharing a tweet on July 20th that also included the video, stating, "Tanks are being put on the streets in China to protect the banks," which identified the video's location as the "Henan branch of the Bank of China." In one day, the video received roughly 8.3 million views and 101,800 likes (shown below).

🚨🚨🚨🚨Breaking news🚨🚨🚨🚨

Tanks are being put on the streets in China to protect the banks.

This is because the Henan branch of the Bank of China declaring that people's savings in their branch are now 'investment products' and can't be withdrawn.

🔊sound pic.twitter.com/cwTPjGz84K

— Wall Street Silver (@WallStreetSilv) July 20, 2022

Memetic reactions surfaced from the sharing of the aforementioned video. For instance, Twitter^[6] fash_tankie replied on July 20th with a Crying Wojak wearing a communist cap, captioning it, "'B-but in China the Army protects people, not m-money,'" earning roughly 3,300 likes in one day.

On July 21st, 2022, verified Twitter^[9] user and Chinese reporter Andy Boreham tweeted a reply to WallStreetBets' video that called it "⛔NOT TRUE⛔" and stated it was actually a video of a training exercise filmed near the Quanji Hotel in Rizhou City, Shandong. His reply received roughly 1,700 likes in less than a day.

Additionally, Twitter users started to tweet the original video in the replies to WallStreetBets' tweet. The original video was tweeted on July 19th, 2022, by Twitter^[10] user jenniferatntd, earning roughly 311,700 views and over 920 likes in two days (shown below).

#PLA #tanks on the streets in Rizhao City, #Shandong Province, #CCPChina. It was said that there is a navy training base nearby, and this happens every year.
Yet, right now… pic.twitter.com/bkaFu011Ou

— Jennifer Zeng 曾錚 (@jenniferatntd) July 19, 2022

On July 21st, 2022, Redditor SirBootyTooty posted a question to /r/OutOfTheLoop ^[11] that asked about the multiple tank videos and allegations that were surfacing on the website. Redditor sarded then left a detailed comment stating "Yes and No," alluding to both the actual bank protests happening in China and the false claim that was the tank video.

Tiananmen Square 2.0

On July 21st, 2022, internet news outlet First Post^[7] wrote an article that's title led with, "Tiananmen Square 2.0?" This coined the term online and subsequently led to tweets and quote retweets that used it.^[8]

Search Interest

External References