No, Chinese President Xi Jinping Has Not Thanked Congress’ Rahul Gandhi

We found that the screenshot is fabricated and there is no evidence to prove that Jinping thanked Gandhi.

As the Congress party kickstarted its 'Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra' from Manipur, a screenshot of a post purportedly from Chinese media organisation Global Times is going viral on the internet.

• The post mentions that Chinese President Xi Jinping has thanked Congress leader Rahul Gandhi for respecting the sovereignty of the former's country.

What are users claiming?: Those sharing the screenshot have said, "What did I told you on day one when this yatra first route was published, Arunachal was left out. Congress means Chinese franchise (sic)."

The post had gained over a lakh views on the platform. (More archives of similar claims can be found here, here, and here.)

What is the truth?: The screenshot is fabricated and is being shared with a false claim.

• Team WebQoof did not come across any credible news reports that supported the viral claim. Additionally, the viral screenshot has some noticeable errors.

What led us to the truth?: At first, we checked Global Times' official X handle to verify if they had shared a post about Jinping thanking Gandhi.

• Using the help of advanced search option, we looked for posts carried keywords 'Rahul Gandhi'. However, the search did not return any results.

Mistakes in the viral screenshot: Team WebQoof found that Jinping was referred in the post as the Chinese Premier instead of saying Chinese President.

• The image of Jinping also carried a mistake, which showed a woman's face cutout in the shape of a teapot.

Another advanced search on X proved that the media house refers to Jinping as the Chinese President and calls Li Qiang the Chinese Premier.

No media reports or information available in public domain: Team WebQoof did not come across any credible news reports or information in the public domain that supported the viral claim.

• It should be noted that if Jinping had indeed made such a comment, it would have been reported by several media houses.

Where is the picture of Chinese President from?: A simple reverse image search led us to a video published on the official YouTube channel of CGTN, a Chinese media organisation.

• The video was shared on 7 March 2018.

• Its description mentioned that Jinping had joined a panel discussion with the deputies from South China's Guangdong Province at the first session of the 13th National People's Congress.

• We compared the viral image to a keyframe from the clip uploaded on YouTube and found that both visuals are from the same incident.

Conclusion: It is evident that a fabricated screenshot is being shared to claim that Chinese President Xi Jinping thanked Congress' Rahul Gandhi.

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