Xi Jinping health rumours: Unverified post about stroke after BRICS summit gets ‘Community Note’ on X | Today’s news
Unverified reports about Xi Jinping’s health surfaced online after Chinese dissident leader Wanjun Xie claimed the Chinese president fainted during the BRICS summit in Delhi last week and later suffered a severe ischemic stroke.
Ischemic stroke is a medical emergency that occurs when a blood clot blocks an artery and stops blood flow to part of the brain
Xie claimed this in a series of posts on X, but there has been no official confirmation from Beijing that Xi fainted, suffered a stroke or was hospitalized.
Wanjun’s social media post claimed that Xi was flown back to Beijing for emergency treatment at the People’s Liberation Army General Hospital, commonly known as the 301 Hospital. Wanjun is the chairman of the China Democratic Party (CDP), which has been banned in China. According to media reports, he remains in the US.
Community Notes on X
The X post also contained comments from the X community.
Community notes on X are crowdsourced labels adding context to posts that may be misleading or missing important information. The claims about Xi’s alleged health, treatment and possible cancellation of the trip to the US were presented as allegations and not independently proven in the post.
No credible report supported the claim. The post also received a community comment about X calling it inconsistent with the facts.
The MEA issued a warning on X that malicious and false posts about the health of the leaders who attended the summit were circulating on the internet.
India hosted the Brics Summit on September 12-13, which was attended by leaders of 11 member countries and 10 partner countries along with representatives of international organizations.
Xi held bilateral talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the sidelines of the summit, but left without attending a gala dinner hosted by Prime Minister Modi on Saturday, September 12.
The MEA called the health reports fake
Earlier on Thursday, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) dismissed reports claiming that several world leaders fell ill after attending the BRICS summit in India, terming the reports as “false”.
In a post on X, the ministry’s fact-checking unit warned against what it described as “harmful” posts circulating on social media platforms.
“Fake alert!!! We warn against such malicious posts on social media platforms!” the ministry stated in a post on X.
The MEA statement came after South African President Cyril Ramaphosa’s office said he had withdrawn from public procurement after returning from the BRICS summit in India.
The 73-year-old president was advised by doctors to rest and recover due to ill health, according to the statement.
“The Presidency wishes to advise that due to ill health, President Cyril Ramaphosa is currently excluded from public procurement,” it said.
Ramaphosa returned from the summit on Monday and has since been resting on medical advice, the presidency said.
