Day: March 25, 2023

In Brief

Around the time of Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s visit to Moscow earlier this week, a Twitter account with more than 50,000 followers posted a photo purportedly showing Russian President Vladimir Putin kneeling before Xi and grasping his hands in apparent supplication. Jason Jay Smart, a special correspondent for the Kyiv Post, later retweeted the photo accompanied by the caption, “Putin attempting to persuade Xi.”

Asia Fact Check Lab (AFCL) found several flaws in the photo typical of manipulated digital images that confirm the photo is a fake.

In Depth

Xi’s visit with Putin took place as the war in Ukraine entered its second year and the Russian leader has become increasingly isolated globally. The previous week,  the International Criminal Court had issued an arrest warrant for Putin for alleged war crimes involving the forced deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia. 

China painted Xi’s three-day trip as an opportunity to “promote global strategic stability amid the ongoing Ukraine crisis.” The two leaders signed 14 agreements and pledged to deepen their strategic partnership, but Alexander Gabuev, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, described the agreements as “pretty thin.” Missing were a deal on a natural gas pipeline that Putin hoped to build to increase Russian energy sales to China and any public breakthrough on ending the war.

On March 20, the first day of Xi’s visit, the two leaders met for talks, with media covering some of their comments. That same day, Smart, working for the Kyiv Post, an English-language newspaper in Ukraine, retweeted a photo of Putin kneeling before Xi with his two hands clasping those of the Chinese president.

The timing of the tweet immediately suggests the image is fake: Smart’s retweet of the kneeling photo is stamped March 20, 11:21 a.m., but the 4½ hour Putin-Xi meeting didn’t actually take place until that afternoon. 

Digitally manipulated photos are proliferating online, but—for now, at least—a sharp-eyed viewer can often spot flaws that give them away. 

Significantly, neither leader’s face is fully visible in the kneeling photo. AFCL spotted five discrepancies that suggest the photo was doctored.

• Different backdrop

A comparison between the Twitter photo and images from Western media video footage and photos of the March 20 turns up numerous differences in the backdrop. 

In photos of the meeting taken by the Kremlin pool via the Associated Press, the two leaders are seen sitting in white-and-beige chairs in an ornate state room decorated in a muted palette featuring pale-green walls, white columns, and gold-and-white-toned furnishings. The meeting room in the Twitter photo has sage-green walls, a red carpet, and chairs and other furniture fashioned from brown-colored wood.

• Distorted walls

In the Twitter photo, the white column behind the supposed kneeling Putin appears distorted. This indicates that the photo may have been altered. Another distortion is visible in the man standing in the background at the far right: He appears to be superimposed on another body, and his legs disappear before reaching the floor. Some of the furniture also appears to have missing legs or extra legs. 

• Different types of shoes

Both leaders in the Twitter photo are wearing black matte shoes with no laces. Photos taken by AP show Xi wearing black shoes with a wider toe and thicker sole, while Putin’s shoes have a more pointed toe and visible laces.

Furthermore, both the angle of Putin’s right foot and the sole of his right shoe look unnatural in the kneeling photo.

• Different hair and heads

Xi has maintained the same hairstyle for years. Compared to his usual look, the Chinese president’s hair appears flatter and smoother in the Twitter photo and his hairline clearly differs from that in the AP photos. 

The way Xi’s hair is cut in the back also differs. AFCL found a still image from 2022 that shows Xi bending forward to lay a wreath at an event commemorating China’s national heroes. In that image, grabbed from video footage taken by Chinese official broadcaster CCTV, Xi sports a more subtle neckline than the high, chopped trim displayed in the Twitter photo.

Neither leader’s face is fully visible in the Twitter photo, but both heads appear disproportionately large compared to their bodies. The parts of the men’s faces that are visible appear preternaturally smooth, with no hint of wrinkles, while the middle of Putin’s ear includes a strange lump. Putin’s hand also appears unnaturally smooth and melts into Xi’s suit jacket.

• Disappearing watch

The AP photos show a watch peeping out from Putin’s right suit sleeve. Only the cuff of a white shirt is visible in the photo of him kneeling. 

Conclusion

A tweeted photo that appears to show Putin kneeling before Xi during his recent visit to Moscow might reflect some people’s perception of the power dynamics between the two leaders. But several obvious flaws and discrepancies in the image make clear that the photo is a fake. 

Translated by Shen Ke

Asia Fact Check Lab (AFCL) is a new branch of Radio Free Asia, established to counter disinformation in today’s complex media environment. Our journalists publish both daily and special reports that aim to sharpen and deepen our readers’ understanding of public issues. 

The first global water conference in nearly 50 years adopted almost 700 voluntary commitments that U.N. chief Antonio Guterres declared were “game-changing, inclusive and action-oriented.”

The United Nations 2023 Water Conference, which concluded Friday in New York, generated pledges from governments, non-profit groups and companies, all consolidated into a Water Action Agenda touted as a “milestone” action plan for universal access to clean water and sanitation. 

“As humanity’s most precious global common good, water unites us all. And it flows across a number of global challenges,” Guterres said in concluding remarks. “That’s why water needs to be at the center of the global political agenda.” 

About 10% of the global population live in countries with “high or critical” water stress, or significant issues in accessing water, researchers say. In Asia, around 80% of people live under some degree of water stress, particularly in northeast China, India, and Pakistan.

The agenda includes commitments to create water pipelines and wastewater treatment plants, and ensuring every person in the world is protected with early warning systems against natural disasters by 2027, he said.

Some of the commitments include enhancing awareness and willingness among political leaders to address water challenges in Asia and the Pacific and harvesting rainwater in Southeast Asian schools to overcome the water crisis among others.

Progress on reaching the goals will be tracked and evaluated at future U.N. meetings. Guterres will also appoint a special envoy on water to spearhead the efforts.

Lacking accountability

But some conservation groups criticized the non-binding nature of the agreements, saying they lacked rigor and accountability.

“Trying to solve one of the greatest challenges facing humanity with voluntary commitments and solutions based on half-baked evidence is like taking a knife to a gunfight – it simply isn’t good enough and represents a betrayal of the world’s poor who bear the brunt of the water crisis,” said Nick Hepworth, executive director of Water Witness, at one of the side events.

Nearly 2 billion people worldwide do not have access to safe water, the U.N. says, while as many as 4 billion people experience water shortages for at least one month a year.

And ahead of the conference, a new report by the Global Commission on the Economics of Water said the world is on the brink of a water crisis, with the demand for freshwater projected to exceed the supply by 40% by the end of this decade.

Cooperating on access to water

More than 170 countries and thousands of delegates, including scientists, civil society groups and indigenous peoples, attended the three-day event, which the Netherlands and Tajikistan co-hosted at the U.N. headquarters in New York.

During the event, the first U.N. conference on water since 1977, many countries shared their experiences with water-related crises. 

“We seem to either have too much water or too little,” said Senzo Mchunu, South Africa’s water minister. “We will fail on climate change if we fail on water.”

In about 40% of the cases, access to freshwater is controlled by just one country, said Sonja Köppel, the Secretary to the Water Convention.

“So cooperating on the use of those waters is crucial for peace, sustainable development and climate action,” she said on Thursday at one of the side events.

During the conference, the United States announced U.S.$49 billion “toward equitable, climate-resilient water and sanitation investments.”

“The water crisis is a humanitarian crisis. It is a security crisis. It is a moral crisis. And it is a global crisis – one that demands global cooperation,” U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield said Friday.

U.N. General Assembly President Csaba Korosi said more than U.S.$300 billion in total had been pledged at the meeting.

“The outcome of this conference is not a legally binding document, but it still turns the page of history,” he said in his closing remarks. 

Grow into something bigger

Despite criticism from some that the agenda didn’t go far enough, water advocates hope that the assorted pledges will swell into a global binding agreement, something like the 2015 Paris climate accord or this month’s high seas treaty.

On Friday morning, more than 100 water experts and activists from around the world sent a letter to the U.N. chief expressing “grave concern” that the conference “will fail to secure the more just, resilient, and sustainable water future that the world so urgently needs.” 

Many participants pressed the United Arab Emirates, the host of COP28 later this year, to make water central to the climate negotiations debate. 

“We have to make sure that water will never be left out of any COP… We see a [binding] pact for the future where water is core and central,” said Henk Ovink, special water envoy for The Netherlands. 

“This conference did not give us a mandate to do so [agree on a binding pact], but we brought the world together to ensure there is a follow-up.”

Water commitment at a vital juncture

World Resources Institute, a Washington-based research organization, said the U.N. water conference comes “when climate change is exacerbating a global water crisis that is severely affecting half the world’s population.”

“For too long, water has been overlooked on the international agenda, even as climate change has supercharged the crisis, hurting countries’ economies, exposing more people to the injustice of unsafe and unreliable water, and driving violent conflicts over scarce supplies,” said Ani Dasgupta, WRI’s president & CEO.

The organization analyzed all the commitments made at the water conference and found that over 70% lack quantified targets or enough consideration of climate risks.

However, around 200 promise to be true game-changers, which could have a real impact if funded in accessing clean water and sanitation, building resilience to floods and droughts, and reducing the risk of water-driven conflicts, it said. 

Edited by Malcolm Foster.