Jiang Zemin has how many fingers? Twitter jokes and blocked Weibo posts abound as China holds grand parade

Chinese social media erupted in mockery and jokes - amid the praise and applause - during China's military parade on Thursday, marking 70 years since the end of the second world war.

Internet users found plenty to talk about, from former president Jiang Zemin's hands to Mao Zedong's rotund grandson looking deflated from the heat - even if much of the chatter was eventually blocked by the internet police.

Deletions of posts on Weibo - the Twitter-like service massively popular in China - picked up steam at around 11.50am, as the parade went into full swing, according to South China Morning Post’s analysis for the past 24 hours. At least one of the deleted photos were, however, later carried by mainland media.

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The deletions hit a peak in the late afternoon as the event had wrapped up, after bevies of marching troops and tanks, along with other military hardware, had streamed down Changan Avenue, past the Tiananmen Rostrum where President Xi Jinping and some world leaders were watching.

Around this time, more than 46,000 people reposted a news clip of Xi's keynote speech earlier in the morning, sarcastically captioned by a Weibo user as: "Easy to understand, meaningful. Mighty, mighty, mighty." The widely shared post was swiftly blocked.