Rumors swirl around Xi Jinping's health after India trip

After PRC Chairman Xi Jinping returned from the BRICS summit in India, rumors spread on social media about possible health problems. There is no reliable confirmation of these claims, and China officially announced that Xi completed the planned summit program.

As The Independent writes, attention to the topic intensified after Xi left New Delhi on September 13, earlier than some other summit participants, and did not attend the gala dinner of BRICS leaders. However, the PRC Foreign Ministry's pre-announced visit program stipulated that the Chinese leader would stay in India precisely from September 12 to 13.

During the summit opening, another episode occurred that became actively discussed on social media. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi briefly interrupted his speech and asked Xi, who was nearby, if everything was alright. The Chinese leader nodded, after which assistants approached him. Later, Chinese journalists claimed that the situation was related to a malfunction of the simultaneous interpretation device.

After the summit, Xie Wanjun, chairman of the unregistered China Democratic Party, who is in the US, claimed on social media X that Xi had supposedly lost consciousness and suffered a stroke. He also asserted that the Chinese leader was taken to a Beijing hospital after returning. These claims are not confirmed by PRC authorities, independent medical sources, or other reliable sources. The Independent presents them precisely as spreading rumors, not as an established fact.

Official statements from the Chinese Foreign Ministry give a different picture of the trip. The ministry reported that Xi participated in the first and second sessions of the BRICS summit, spoke at them, and held meetings with other leaders. On the afternoon of September 13, he left New Delhi after "completing participation" in the summit, and returned to Beijing in the evening. 

Thus, Xi's return on September 13 itself does not indicate an early termination of the visit: even before it began, the PRC Foreign Ministry officially announced that the trip would last from September 12 to 13. Chinese authorities have not publicly reported any health problems of the PRC Chairman.

The rumors gained additional attention because, as of September 17, no new public events involving Xi had been published on the official website of the PRC Foreign Ministry after his return from India. The absence of such events, however, is not evidence of illness.

Based on materials from: The Independent, China's Foreign Ministry