An image of a drone light show, where the face of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, along with the text “Modi welcome to China”, was displayed along with a figure of a dancing woman, went viral on social media just before the Indian leader’s scheduled visit to China. Those sharing the image hailed it as an example of the supremacy of the Indian Prime Minister, who even made arch rival China ‘bow down’.
PM Modi arrived in China’s Tianjin on August 31 for the annual summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and was scheduled to hold bilateral meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the event. The meeting is crucial as it comes days after US President Donald Trump imposed a 50% tariff on Indian goods, owing to its hefty purchases of Russian crude. Modi’s visit to China — his first in seven years — has sparked speculation that New Delhi and Beijing will attempt to ease tensions and bolster trade ties. Diplomatic relations between the two countries had been tense after the 2020 Galwan Valley skirmishes that left many soldiers dead.
X user Raushan Sinha (@MrSinha_), who has amplified communal misinformation several times in the past, shared the viral photo claiming these were “unbelievable times”. At the time this article was written, the post had 1.7 million views. (Archive)
Sagar Kumar (@KumaarSaagar), a journalist at Sudarshan News, also posted the viral image tagging US President Donald Trump. (Archive)
The post was also circulated by several others on X, such as Kreately Media (@KreatelyMedia), Jaipur Dialogues (@JaipurDialogues), Megh Updates (@MeghUpdates), Ocean Jain (@ocjain4), Yati Sharma (@yati_Official1), Harsh Vardhan Tripathi (@MediaHarshVT), Shaurya Mishra (@shauryabjym), Rinita Chatterjee Pandey (@IRinitiPandey), Abhay Pratap Singh (@IAbhay_Pratap) and Comman Man (@CommanGUY), among others. Several of these handles have, in the past, amplified pro-BJP content.
(Archived links: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
Fact Check
A reverse image search of the viral image led us to this Instagram reel, uploaded on July 29, 2025.
View this post on Instagram
The video shows a drone show in Chongqing, China. At one point, the figure of a dancing woman (similar to the viral image) could be made out. However, we found no references to Modi, which made us suspect the viral photo may have been edited.
Taking cue from this, we ran a relevant keyword search on YouTube and came across this video, uploaded on July 22. The description says that a drone show, featuring more than 11,000 drones, was organised to celebrate Chongqing city’s 28th anniversary. We scanned through the video and located a similar figure of the dancing woman around the 0:38-minute timestamp.
Another keyword search on Facebook led us to a post by People’s Daily, a Chinese news agency, from April 21 where the same image of the dancing figure was seen.
We also found a news report by Xinhua, China’s official state news agency, which said that the drone light show took place in the Nan’an District of southwest China’s Chongqing Municipality on April 19, 2025. The same image of the dancing woman also appears here.
A side-by-side comparison made it amply clear that the original image (on the left) was edited with Modi’s face and the welcome text added to it.
A Chinese journalist, Shen Shiwei, also wrote on X that the image with text ‘welcoming’ the Indian PM was fake.
🤦♂️Who made and spread the FAKE image on the left?
The REAL one is on the right, drone light show debuts in southwest China’s metropolis of Chongqing this April. pic.twitter.com/cxvhs9AJDf
— Shen Shiwei 沈诗伟 (@shen_shiwei) August 31, 2025
Thus, we were able to conclude that viral image of the drone show with text welcoming Indian PM Modi ahead of the SCO summit was morphed. The actual photo dates back to April 19, 2025, and is from a drone light show in Chongqing, much before PM Modi’s visit to China.
Note: A typo in the year of the Galwan Valley clashes has been corrected and the story has been updated with the X post by Chinese journalist Shen Shiwei.
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