A Chinese broadcaster’s video produced to celebrate 50 years of China-Malaysia relations has recirculated online alongside a misleading claim it was a promotion by the Malaysian government to attract tourists to the coastal state of Malacca. However, the official state tourism department’s footage featured different scenes from those shown in the misleading posts.
“Promotional video for Malacca tourism but it looks like a video of visiting Guangzhou,” read an X post on July 31, 2024, which has been reposted 1,000 times.
The accompanying two-minute, 20-second video features captions in simplified Chinese alongside the logo for the Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu in the top left-hand corner.
It shows dancers in traditional attire singing and dancing through various landmarks in the historic Malaysian state of Malacca, many of whom appear to be of Chinese descent.
The current Malaysian administration has been seen as moving closer to China, particularly after Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim announced in June that Malaysia wants to join the BRICS group of developing countries (archived link).
But the warming ties have also triggered fears among Malay nationalists about resurgent Chinese identity in the country (archived link).
Similar misleading posts on X here, here, here and here shared the same video alongside concerns that Malays might lose their rights in the Southeast Asian nation.
However, the clip has been shared in a misleading context — it was produced by a Chinese state broadcaster to mark 50 years of diplomatic ties between Malaysia and China.
Chinese broadcaster clip
A keyword search on Xiaohongshu found the same clip shared by a Malaysian tour agency, Golden Point Leisure & MICE Holiday on July 19, 2024 (archived link).
Its simplified Chinese caption states the song was a collaboration between Malaysian singer Ah Niu and Chinese singer Huang Ying, who sang a mashup of the Malay-language folk song “Rasa Sayang” and Chinese folk song “Jasmine Flower” to mark 50 years of ties between the two countries.
It also indicated the source of the video, “New Folk Song Congress”.
Further keyword searches on Google found the programme was published by Chinese state broadcaster Guangxi TV as part of an hour-long show on July 6, 2024 to celebrate China-Malaysia relations (archived link).
The clip can be seen at the 38-minute 53-second mark of the full broadcast, which also showed the two singers exploring the historic Malacca state.
Below is a screenshot comparison of the video used in the misleading posts (left) and the footage from Guangxi TV (right):
The official state tourism department, Tourism Malacca, also shared a longer version of the musical number on its official Facebook page on July 6, stating that the official recording was released on Guangxi TV in the hopes of boosting the number of tourists from China, especially from Guangxi province (archived link).
The official “Visit Malacca” promotional video was published on YouTube by the tourism department on July 20, 2023 and shows various cultural influences in the state (archived link):
