Video purportedly showing Indian visitors to China sitting on the side of the road in Shanghai is AI-generated, contrary to posts claiming it shows an example of tourists being “lawless”. The clip contains multiple visual inconsistencies and was flagged as an AI creation by a detection tool.
“Indian Muslims are acting like zombies in Shanghai, being domineering and lawless, making fools of themselves,” says a simplified Chinese X post shared by a user with over 98,000 followers on June 21, 2026.
Attached to the post is a 10-second clip appearing to show people sitting on the pavement of a busy city street.
The person supposedly filming says in Mandarin: “Lately, all these Indians have been flocking to Shanghai to escape the heat, and it’s made a total mess of things for us. Just look at them — all dishevelled and chaotic; it’s really annoying.”
Screenshot of the false post captured on June 25, 2026, with a red X and an AI symbol added by AFP
The clip was also shared in similar X posts in multiple languages.
Beijing and New Delhi have made efforts to normalise relations after a rift triggered by deadly clashes along their shared Himalayan border in 2020 (archived link).
According to the Chinese ambassador Xu Feihong, more than 85,000 visas were issued to Indian citizens in the first quarter of 2025 (archived link).
Direct flights have gradually resumed between major cities, and China has also introduced a simplified online visa application system for Indian nationals in December 2025 (archived link).
Despite diplomatic efforts at rebuilding ties, some of the discourse on Chinese social media platforms about the increase of Indian tourists remains discriminatory (archived here and here).
AFP found that some videos, labelled as AI-generated, accused Indian tourists of disturbing public order, mocked how they eat, or claimed they were escaping a heatwave in India by enjoying air conditioning in China (archived here, here and here).
The video appearing to show tourists sitting on the side of the city street is also an AI creation.
A closer look at the circulating clip shows it contains numerous visual inconsistencies that indicate it is synthetic.
Two people in the foreground of the video appear to merge into one another, store logos and text on billboards are fuzzy and unreadable, and the colours of the traffic lights in the intersection appear to be in the incorrect order.
Screenshots of the falsely shared video, with visual inconsistencies highlighted by AFP
Furthermore, a grey car that is about to cross the intersection disappears in the middle of the street and traffic lights display contradictory signals.
Screenshots of the falsely shared video, with visual inconsistencies highlighted by AFP
An analysis of the video using the Hive Moderation detection tool found it was “likely to contain AI-generated or deepfake content” (archived link).
Screenshot of results from the Hive Moderation detection tool
AFP has previously debunked other misinformation targeting Indian people that circulated in Chinese posts.
