Sanjeeb Phuyal is the Nepali Editor of Newschecker based in Kathmandu, Nepal. He brings over a decade of experience writing and editing news. In his previous stint, he worked as online editor for The Kathmandu Post. With the growth of social media platforms—and the ever-growing competition amongst media outlets to churn out breaking news, he feels that fact-checking every piece of information has become essential today than ever before.
Claim
Chinese President Xi Jinping praised Nepal’s Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ as one of the dynamic leaders of Asia
Fact
Xi didn’t praised Dahal, rather Prachanda hailed Xi as a visionary global leader
Even as Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal wrapped up his official engagements during his week-long China visit on Monday, a viral video claiming that Chinese President Xi Jinping hailed Nepal’s Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal as “one the dynamic leaders of Asia” is going viral on TikTok.
TikTok user @chawaassai posted a video showing footage of Chinese President Xi Jinping talking to Nepal’s Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal and the latter nodding his head. The footage also shows flags of Nepal and China put next to each other. Text superimposed on the video reads, “Xi Jinping praised Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ and hailed him as the most dynamic leader of Asia.”
The video posted on September 24 has garnered 12.5k likes, 197 users have shared it and 328 people have commented on it.
The video was posted by a Facebook user Shyam Kumar Shrestha.
The archived version of the TikTok video can be seen here.
Newschecker found the claim to be misleading.
Fact Check /Verification
To check the authenticity of the claim made in the viral video, Newschecker split the video into several keyframes and conducted reverse searches on them. However, we could not establish the truth behind the viral video.
We, then, conducted a search on Google by using relevant keywords and found several articles confirming that Chinese President Xi Jinping met Nepal’s Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ on September 23 on the sidelines of the 19th Asian Games in Hangzhou. However, we couldn’t find anything corroborating the claim that President Xi praised ‘Prachanda’ as a dynamic leader of Asia.
An article published on Democracy Live News confirmed that the two leaders discussed strengthening bilateral ties, promoting infrastructure connectivity, and enhancing mutual understanding and support. According to the article, PM Prachanda hailed President Xi as a visionary global leader and reiterated Nepal’s commitment to adhere to the one-China policy.
Further, we conducted a search on YouTube by using keywords ‘Nepal’s Prime Minister meets Chinese President Xi Jinping’ and found a video, dated 23 September 2023, published on the YouTube channel named CCTV Video News Agency. The video footage and audio from the 0.8-minute onwards exactly matched the viral video. The English subtitle of the address by leader Xi reads, “You have been committed to promoting the development of China-Nepal friendly relations and firmly supporting the Belt and Road cooperation between the two countries, which I highly appreciate. China and Nepal are connected by mountains and rivers, and have enjoyed an everlasting friendship. China attaches great importance to its relationship with Nepal, and is willing to work with Nepal to seek greater synergy between our development strategies, deepen practical cooperation in various fields and strengthen experience sharing on state governance.”
In response, Pushpa Kamal Dahal says, “You are a visionary and a great leader of our time, and a true friend of Nepal.”
Thus, our findings clearly show that Chinese President Xi didn’t praise Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ as the dynamic leader of Asia.
Conclusion
The viral video claiming to show Chinese President Xi Jinping hailing Nepal’s Prime Minister Prachanda as one of the dynamic leaders of Asia is misleading, rather PM Dahal praised Xi as a visionary global leader of this era.
Result: False
Sources
CCTV Video News Agency/YouTube,Sept 23, 2023
Democracy News Live, September 24, 2023
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, September 26, 2023
Kathmandu Post, September 23, 2023
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Sanjeeb Phuyal is the Nepali Editor of Newschecker based in Kathmandu, Nepal. He brings over a decade of experience writing and editing news. In his previous stint, he worked as online editor for The Kathmandu Post. With the growth of social media platforms—and the ever-growing competition amongst media outlets to churn out breaking news, he feels that fact-checking every piece of information has become essential today than ever before.
