Fact-Check: Misleading Claims of advancements in development techniques about China’s Chongqing city went viral.

A video has been widely shared on social media platform X(formerly Twitter) showing the advancements in developmental techniques in China’s Chongqing City along with the voice-over explaining China’s developmental projects that have surpassed other developed nations in terms of infrastructure.

A user shared this video on X and wrote: “China has already become the world’s greatest superpower, it just hasn’t announced it yet. America has also understood this; it will maintain good relations with this country, rather than with nations entangled in caste and religion” (Translated from Hindi)

Furthermore, numerous users shared this video and made similar claims. The preview link can be seen here and here.

Fact-Check

The DFRAC team investigated the viral video and found that some of the claims shared through this video are completely misleading.

Firstly, we closely inspected the video which revealed that the video was edited. Several short video clips were clubbed together to make a single video about China’s city.

Taking our probe further, we found that the claims shared through these short video clips contained some factual errors.

Misleading Claim No. 1:

At 0:06 sec, a clip of building construction has been shared claiming that it has taken just 2 hours to construct this building.

Fact: Investigating this claim, we found a 2021 report by India Times stating that China-based manufacturing enterprise Broad Group has managed to construct a 10-storey steel apartment building in just over a day. Yes, 28 hours and 45 minutes to be precise. The report also carried a YouTube video showing the same clip as shared in the viral video.

Misleading Claim No. 2:

At 0:25 sec, a clip showing a vehicle modifying the divider of the roads has been shared with the claim that there are no fixed dividers on the roads. The road having more traffic can be broadened.

Fact: The same clip has been found on the YouTube account of OneIndia News with the date Sept 1, 2022.
The video’s description read: “China has apparently come up with an innovation to subvert excessive traffic jams which are gaining traction online”. Moreover, the video was from Beijing as stated in an NDTV’s report.

Misleading Claim No. 3

At 0:47 sec, a clip showing a green terrace building has been shared with the claim that this city’s terrace infrastructure took it to another level.

Fact: A reverse-image search of the clip’s keyframes took us to the Alamy website where we found similar images with the information that this terrace infrastructure is called Bosco Verticale Towers, Vertical Forest, with plants and trees that are situated in Milan, Italy, not in China’s Chongqing city.

Conclusion

It is evident from DFRAC’s fact-check that some claims about China’s well-developed Chongqing have been misleading shared on X, and lack accuracy in facts.

Analysis: Misleading