Chinese vloggers misrepresent Dhaka neighbourhoods as New Delhi

More than 150 Chinese nationals have reportedly filmed in impoverished Dhaka neighbourhoods while presenting the locations as parts of New Delhi. Their disparaging remarks about living conditions and food habits have raised concerns over misleading content targeting India's image.

Dhaka: Over 150 Chinese nationals have been filming and livestreaming from economically disadvantaged neighbourhoods of Bangladesh’s capital, Dhaka, falsely depicting them as parts of New Delhi, India, according to several reports.

While recording footage from these locations, they made disparaging comments about India’s living standards, sanitation, food habits and poverty.

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The misleading portrayal has sparked concerns over the deliberate distortion of geographical locations and the possible use of deceptive online content to create negative perceptions about India among international audiences.

The incident has underscored the growing threat posed by misinformation and manipulated content on social media, where sensationalised posts can spread widely before their authenticity is established.

The activities have reportedly been taking place in Dhaka’s Tekpara and Uttara areas for several months, with streamers remaining active from early morning until late at night.

One Chinese woman identified as ‘Mianmian’, who claimed to be from China’s Sichuan province, livestreamed from beside a canal in Uttara Sector 12 of Dhaka on November 1. She reportedly presented the area to her online audience as New Delhi and described the residential buildings and surrounding areas as dirty, underdeveloped and unhygienic.

“This is New Delhi. Their homes are extremely dirty. There isn’t even a fan inside the tin-roofed houses. This place is quite underdeveloped, dirty and unhygienic, and the law-and-order situation is poor,” leading Bangladeshi daily ‘Prothom Alo’ quoted her as saying.

In another instance, a Chinese national was seen livestreaming from tea stalls in the Tekpara locality of Dhaka, making the offensive remark that the tea consumed by locals was made using “cow urine”.

“Look, they are drinking tea. Do you know what kind of tea this is? This is cow urine tea. They drink cow urine tea,” Prothom Alo quoted him as saying.

The footage also contained derogatory comments on the residents’ lifestyles, with repeated references to poor hygiene, lack of sanitation and substandard living conditions.

These are not isolated incidents, as reports of Chinese content creators recording videos in Dhaka’s underprivileged neighbourhoods have been emerging since May 2026.

The recurring pattern of Chinese content creators repeatedly filming in the same low-income neighbourhoods, along with allegations of geographical misrepresentation and intrusive filming, raises concerns about attempts to undermine India’s image internationally.

These recent developments point to what could be a coordinated anti-India campaign. The issue is not merely the recording of impoverished neighbourhoods, but the alleged misrepresentation of locations in another country as parts of India, coupled with disparaging remarks that could influence how international audiences perceive Indian society.