Fact check: Is China moving forces towards Hong Kong?

Fact check: Is China moving forces towards Hong Kong?
By Euronews
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Euronews' Cube team uses social media to analyse the US president's claim that China is moving troops towards Hong Kong.

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US President Donald Trump claimed on Tuesday that China was moving troops towards its border with Hong Kong as social media users in China posted videos of large military trucks lining streets in southern China.

The Cube confirmed that the social media posts were taken in Shenzhen, a Chinese city located on the mainland's border with Hong Kong.

Watch the full report in the video player above.

In the following social media posts, you see what appears to be a convoy of large military vehicles lining the streets. The user says the videos were taken in Shenzhen.

In the above video, you can clearly see a stadium with a recognisable roof pattern, an identifiable marker that helped Euronews' team to confirm that the video was indeed taken there.

The two skyscrapers behind the stadium provided more clues about where the video was taken.

By using open-source satellite imagery from Google maps, it was clear that the video was showing the Shenzhen Bay Sports Center Stadium. The angle looking over the stadium towards the skyscrapers shows that the convoy was likely heading up Binhai Avenue towards the stadium.

Chinese state media also released video of the convoy of vehicles, stating that they were in Shenzhen preparing for a drill.

The armoured vehicles arrived amidst heightened tensions in Hong Kong as protesters blocked the airport causing major travel disruption for a second day.

Beijing's rhetoric condemning the protests has meanwhile gotten stronger with a spokesman for Hong Kong and Macau affairs in Beijing likening the protests to "terrorism" on Monday.

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