BBC mistakenly uses Taiwan's Double Ten celebrations for North Korea's military parade

The two entities could not be anymore different.

Kayla Wong | October 11, 2020, 08:38 PM

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has mistakenly used footage of Taiwan's Double Ten parade for a news segment on a military parade in North Korea.

Both Taiwan and North Korea celebrates Oct. 10

The Double Ten Day is celebrated in Taiwan annually on Oct. 10 as the self-ruled island's national day.

Oct. 10 is also the day when North Korea marked the 75th founding anniversary of its Workers' Party.

A military parade was held on Kim Il-Sung Square in Pyongyang.

However, instead of the actual parade that featured thousands of troops, tanks, rocket launchers and ballistic missiles, the BBC used footage of the parade held in Taipei outside the Presidential Office, which was much smaller in scale.

Taiwanese flags seen in footage

Footage of the parade in Taiwan lasted for at least a minute.

The clips used had captions written in Traditional Chinese describing the scenes on the side, which include "109th National Day parade" and "Republic of China" (ROC).

Taiwanese flags were clearly visible in the footage as well.

Video clips of Taiwan's parade available before North Korea's

Footage of the Taiwanese parade were available before the North Korean parade's.

While the Taiwanese parade started on Saturday morning, the North Korean parade was not broadcasted until Saturday evening even though it started on Friday evening, according to The Guardian.

The commenter talking about the North Korean military parade could also be heard introducing the parade by Taiwan's Ministry of Defence's Honour Guard as being held on Pyongyang, and discussing about nuclear negotiations between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and United States President Donald Trump.

BBC reportedly apologised

According to local media Central News Agency and ET Today, which cited Twitter user @lazyworkz, the BBC has since amended the news segment and apologised for the error.

Taiwan's Double Ten celebrations

The Double Ten Day in Taiwan commemorates the start of the Wuchang Uprising on Oct. 10, 1911, which then led to the end of the imperial Qing Dynasty and establishment of the ROC a on Jan. 1, 1912.

Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen and Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs took to social media to post about the celebrations.

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Top image via LazyWorkz/Twitter