The Indian Ministry of Foreign Affairs is pushing back on rumors circulating online that multiple world leaders fell ill at a recent summit in New Delhi, warning the public not to believe “malicious posts.”
The speculation centers on the leaders of China and South Africa after returning from the BRICS summit held over the weekend. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa’s office announced on Wednesday that the leader would be temporarily stepping back from public engagements.
“President Ramaphosa, who returned from the BRICS Summit in India on Monday, has been advised by his medical team to rest and recover,” a statement from the leader’s office said, explaining he was suffering “ill health.” The South African government did not specify the nature or cause of Ramaphosa’s illness.
This announcement coincided with widespread speculation about the health of Chinese paramount leader Xi Jinping after a brief incident during a speech at the summit delivered by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Mid-speech, Modi paused for several seconds and looked to Xi’s seat at the table. After a moment of confusion, he asked if everything was okay with the Chinese delegation.
The Chinese delegation waved off the incident as a technological malfunction, explaining that Xi’s real-time translation earpiece had briefly stopped working. Xi finished out the meeting without any further incident.
Xi then unexpectedly skipped the BRICS gala dinner hosted by Modi later that night and returned to his hotel room to rest, according to anonymous sources familiar with the matter quoted by the Press Trust of India. He boarded his plane and left India as scheduled on Sunday.
Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed, the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, also reportedly skipped the gala dinner without explanation and returned home after the summit meetings.
Political commentators and public figures have jumped on the events, pushing wild speculation that the incident was far more grave than reported and driving rumors that Xi actually suffered a medical complication during the trip.
Chinese political dissident Wanjun Xie, who resides in the United States and heads the exiled Democracy Party of China, has asserted — without apparent evidence — that Xi “suffer[ed] a sudden stroke,” is “currently receiving emergency treatment at Beijing’s 301 Hospital” and “has not yet escaped life-threatening danger.”
On Thursday, he claimed that a news video from a Russian outlet — apparently showing the Chinese delegation fiddling with Xi’s earpiece during the awkward pause in Modi’s speech — was an “AI-generated and edited video to help the Chinese Communist Party.”
The Democracy Party was founded in 1998 as an opposition political faction by a group of former students who participated in the ill-fated Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. Since the 2000s, it has operated in exile as an anti-CCP activist organization.
These rumors from Xie and others are not new. Anti-CCP groups routinely cast doubt on the health of Xi, who has centralized state power and effectively rules the entire Chinese government. If the paramount leader were to die or become incapable of governing without a widely accepted succession plan, it could throw the national government into chaos.
The global guesswork about the nature of Xi’s health prompted the Indian Ministry of External Affairs to publish a brief response through its “Fact Check” account on X.
“Fake Alert!!! 
We caution against such malicious posts on social media platforms!” the ministry stated. The fact check was made in response to a post from prediction market service Polymarket, which tweeted that “multiple world leaders have reportedly fallen ill after attending BRICS summit in India.”
Xi has not been seen in public since his departure from India on Sunday, but is slated to meet with President Donald Trump next week for a U.S.-China summit.
China has warned the White House that if the U.S. goes through with a proposed arms sale to Taiwan, Beijing is liable to cancel the summit.
Trump, asked on Sunday whether he was afraid Xi would pull out of the summit at the last second, said he is “not worried about that.”
“We have a great relationship. He wants to get along, and we want it,” he told reporters. “We’re going to get along.”