Top Chinese diplomat Wang Yi criticized Western media on Tuesday for falsely claiming that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov had been taken to a hospital while at G20 in Bali.
"In-person communication should remain the main form of opinion exchange. Whatever the differences, we must always sit down face-to-face and renounce such unseemly forms of spreading fake news," Wang said during a meeting with Lavrov on the sidelines of the G20 summit.
The Chinese diplomat said he knew right away that the story about Lavrov’s hospitalization was false. Lavrov called the rumors "yet another fake story of Western mass media," which have a history of falsely reporting about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s health.
The Associated Press wrote on Monday that the 72-year-old Russian official had been hospitalized, only for Lavrov to dismiss these claims in a video posted online by his spokeswoman. The video showed him doing G20 paperwork in a casual outfit against a backdrop of a lush tropical garden.