Operation Sindoor, the tense India–Pakistan border flare-up in May 2025, was supposed to be a straightforward security crisis. Forces mobilised. Diplomats scrambled. Newsrooms refreshed their wires every few minutes. But while South Asia watched the mountains, a second conflict ignited on a very different battlefield.
That conflict took place on social media, where China quietly launched one of the most calculated AI-powered disinformation campaigns ever documented during an India–Pakistan crisis. Its purpose was not to shape public opinion about the operation itself. It was something far more targeted. China tried to sabotage the global reputation of the French Rafale fighter jet and position its own J-35 as the superior, “battle-tested” platform.
The 2025 U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission Report now confirms what many experts suspected during and after Op Sindoor: China weaponised the crisis for an information operation designed to influence multi-billion-dollar arms markets.
Turning Op Sindoor Into an AI-Generated Smear Campaign
The moment the border incident escalated and Operation Sindoor went live, Chinese-linked bot networks switched on. They flooded platforms with a wave of fabricated posts claiming that Indian Rafales had been shot down. None of these claims were real. India reported no losses. France reported no losses. There was no evidence of any Rafale even being damaged.
But evidence could be manufactured, and that is exactly what China did.
The disinformation network produced AI-generated images showing twisted metal, burnt fuselage parts and shards of aircraft debris that looked suspiciously like pieces of a Rafale. These images were made to appear like shaky, hastily taken photographs from the Himalayan region. They circulated alongside dramatic captions such as “Pakistani air defence downs Indian Rafale” and “French jets no match for Chinese systems.”
Within hours, dozens of fake accounts began reposting these images in English, Hindi, Urdu and sometimes French. Many profiles had AI-generated faces, no history of activity and identical posting behaviour. Their sole purpose was to create the illusion that multiple independent witnesses had captured Rafale wreckage.
This was not chaotic trolling. It was a disciplined, highly coordinated digital operation that used Operation Sindoor as a global stage.
The Bots Never Slept, and Their Audience Was Global
During the height of Op Sindoor, Chinese bot networks targeted three main groups. The first was Indian users. The goal was to sow doubt about the country’s investment in the Rafale. If people believed that Rafales were being shot down, it would strike at the credibility of one of India’s most significant defence acquisitions in decades.
The second was Pakistani users. These accounts tried to frame the supposed “kills” as a victory for Pakistan’s Chinese-supplied air defence systems. The message was simple: China’s defence exports work, and they work against Western platforms.
The third, and most important, audience was international defence buyers. Countries evaluating fighter jet options were nudged toward the J-35 by way of a manufactured narrative that Rafales were failing in real combat. All of this unfolded in real time as Op Sindoor dominated headlines, giving the disinformation a sense of urgency and authenticity.
A Digital Mirage Built on AI Tools
The sophistication of the campaign became clearer once analysts traced the behaviour of the accounts. Many of the profiles used machine-generated faces created with diffusion models. Several reused the same language patterns in multiple languages. Bots often posted the same image seconds apart, attempting to trick the algorithm into amplifying it.
What made the operation striking was the deliberate blending of AI images with the fog of a live military crisis. Because Op Sindoor involved limited official disclosures, China exploited the information vacuum. Any unverified blast or unidentified smoke plume became a cue to push fresh “evidence” of a Rafale loss.
The timing was surgical. Beijing understood that confusion is an opportunity, and it filled that space before India or France could counter the narrative.
Why Rafale Was the Prime Target During Op Sindoor
China was not just trolling for geopolitical effect. Rafale had become a major competitor to China’s J-35 on the global stage. India’s purchase of the Rafale gave the jet a renewed sense of credibility in Asia. Other countries, from Southeast Asia to the Gulf, were considering similar deals.
By using Op Sindoor as a propaganda backdrop, Beijing attempted to dent the Rafale’s reputation at the exact moment its export momentum was growing. If China could plant seeds of doubt, even temporarily, it could shift procurement decisions worth billions of dollars.
This was not an ideological campaign. It was commercial warfare disguised as crisis-time information.
The Rafale Operation Did Not Stand Alone
Although most of China’s efforts during Op Sindoor focused on discrediting the Rafale, the Commission report shows that this was part of a broader pattern. Chinese operators also pushed narratives suggesting India had suffered heavy ground casualties and equipment losses, again without evidence. In each of these narratives, the objective was to create confusion, undermine morale and subtly reinforce the Chinese military’s image as technologically superior.
Op Sindoor became a laboratory for testing how AI-generated content and automated accounts could reshape perceptions during an unfolding crisis.
A Taste of the Future
What China did during Op Sindoor is a preview of future conflict dynamics. Wars will no longer be judged only by what happens at the border. They will be judged by what people see on their screens, often before governments can verify any facts. AI allows adversaries to produce convincing visuals at scale, while bot networks ensure they spread faster than corrections ever can.
The Rafale disinformation campaign shows how vulnerable even advanced democracies are to this new kind of warfare. India did not lose a Rafale during Op Sindoor. Yet millions of users saw posts claiming otherwise, and several of those posts travelled far beyond South Asia.
It is a reminder that in modern conflict, perception is as important as reality. And sometimes, perception can be manufactured.
Understanding the Information War
Operation Sindoor will be remembered as a crisis contained before it escalated. But it should also be remembered for the invisible battle that unfolded on social media. China turned a South Asian border incident into a global messaging operation designed to attack France’s defence reputation and elevate its own. This was not random. It was not accidental. It was strategic.
India needs to continuously track how disinformation evolves into a weapon used not just for political influence, but for military and commercial gains. Operation Sindoor is only the beginning of this new era, where a jet can be “shot down” online even when it is fully intact in the real world.
