No, Chinese leader Xi Jinping did not thank Rahul Gandhi, fake Global Times tweet viral

Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra started from Manipur on January 14 and will conclude in Mumbai on March 20. In this context, a screenshot supposedly of a tweet by Chinese media outlet Global Times is doing the rounds on social media. It has a video of Chinese President Xi Jinping. The ‘tweet’ states that Jinping thanked Congress leader Rahul Gandhi for respecting China’s sovereignty by starting his Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra from Manipur instead of the Indian-occupied Arunachal Pradesh. Several social media users shared this screenshot and accused the Congress of colluding with China.

X handle @BHKslams tweeted the screenshot and questioned whether it was true. (Archived link)

BJP supporter Jyotilaxmi Nambiar shared the screenshot describing Congress as a franchise of China and wrote that when the first route of this yatra was published, she had mentioned that Arunachal was left out.(Archived link)

While sharing the screenshot, BJP supporter Minni Razdan, too, accused Congress of colluding with China. (Archived link)

Many other users also shared this screenshot and targeted Congress and Rahul Gandhi.

Fact Check

Alt News performed a keyword search using the words in the viral tweet on the X account of Global Times. However, we did not find any tweet which stated that the Chinese leader had thanked Congress leader Rahul Gandhi.

After this, we also searched using the keywords ‘Rahul Gandhi’ on the website of Global Times. We could not find any article on the Global Times website. According to the search results on the platform, the last article related to Rahul Gandhi had been published in 2022.

When we performed a reverse image search of the photo featured in the viral screenshot on Google, we came across a video uploaded on CGTN (China Global Television Network) YouTube channel on March 7, 2018. Comparing the frames of this video with the viral screenshot, it was evident that this was the same video which had been used for the viral tweet. According to the information present in the description of this video, Jinping participated in a panel discussion with representatives of South China’s Guangdong province at the first session of the 13th National People’s Congress, China’s national governing body, on March 7, 2018.

Apart from this, if we look closely at the viral screenshot, it appears that it has been doctored, as seen with the cup placed next to the leader.

To sum it up, several BJP supporters and social media users shared a fake screenshots falsely claiming that Chinese President Xi Jinping thanked Congress leader Rahul Gandhi for starting the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra from Manipur instead of Arunachal.