China coup rumors: Is Xi Jinping under house arrest?
A social media frenzy surrounding rumors of a China coup has erupted over the past 48 hours.
Observers have questioned the reason behind the cancellation of over 9000 flights across China’s mainland in the past three days, along with the suspension of bus and train services surrounding Beijing.
Adding to the speculation is an unverified video of an 80 kilometer-long line of military vehicles travelling outside of Beijing.
Where is Xi Jinping?
The Chinese President was last seen publicly in Samarkand, Uzbekistan where he took part in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Heads of State Summit. The following image taken on his arrival in Samarkand on September 14 was shared by China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
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The Summit concluded on September 16.
Days later, many China observers were struck by Xi’s absence at the China National Defense and Military Reform Seminar, and the prominence of Chinese Peoples Liberation Army General, Li Qiaoming, in state media reports about the event.
“Li Qiaoming, the former commander of the Northern Theater Command, who was previously dismissed and rumored to have participated in the “mutiny”, made a high-profile appearance and was photographed sitting in the front row of the meeting next to Liu Zhenli, the commander of the Chinese Communist Army.,” commented Chinese political commentators Liu Fangli and Liang Xin.
The General has since found himself at the centre of the China coup rumors, with many on social media speculating he will succeed Xi.
Origins of the China coup speculation
One of the first mentions of the rumored China coup, came from the mysterious Chinese-language, @5xyxh Twitter handle. The Twitter user which has over 70,000 followers states in its bio, “It is my responsibility to study and protect the country”.
The user tweeted the following on September 22 (translated from Chinese).
“Xi visited Central Asia on the 14th, and Hu and Wen (Former President Hu Jintao and Former Premier Wen Jiabao) successfully persuaded Song Ping, the former member of the Standing Committee to remove Xi from military power. Jiang Zeng and the members of the Central Committee in Beijing were informed on a single line. The original Standing Committee members removed his military power by a show of hands. When he found out, he returned to Beijing on the evening of the 16th, was controlled at the airport, and is now under house arrest at Zhongnanhai’s home. The real story will be announced at the Seventh Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee. Unable to verify.”
Former Indian government minister and long-serving member of parliament, Subramanian Swamy also talked up the speculation.
“New rumour to be checked out: Is Xi Jinping under house arrest in Beijing ? When Xi was in Samarkand recently, the leaders of the Chinese Communist Party were supposed to have removed Xi from the Party’s in-charge of Army. Then House arrest followed. So goes the rumour,” he said.
Could there be truth to the rumors?
As Asia Markets has previously pointed out, Xi Jinping is more vulnerable than many think with the 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party under three weeks away. At the meeting he’ll seek re-election for a third term as President – something no Chinese President has done before.
Xi is facing an increasingly angry middle class as the nation’s property sector collapses and residents grow more and more frustrated by China’s harsh COVID-zero strategy.
Along with this, many in China were angered over Xi’s seemingly soft reaction to Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan.
The coup rumors surfacing in recent days have not been verified by any official source.
It is likely if Xi had successfully been put under house arrest the People’s Liberation Army would already have made an announcement and, as one mainland China-based commentator told Asia Markets, “at the very least, we would have been in a communications and internet black-out from the moment Xi was arrested.”
As for the flight, train and bus cancellations, the powerful Typhoon Muifa made landfall over China last week and many parts of eastern China are now faced with widespread flooding and badly damaged infrastructure.
However, there has been no official explanation.
“There’s been a lot of smoke, that says there is a fire somewhere, we don’t think that there has actually has been a coup but at this point there have been some extremely troubling developments at the top of the Communist Party as well as the top of the People’s Liberation Army that reports to the Party, so something is terribly wrong.” said Gordon Chang, author and a former adviser to the U.S. Government on China, on Newsmax.
Even if this all is a series of convenient coincidences, the velocity of the China coup rumors raises the question, are there forces at play, domestic or foreign, attempting to amplify misinformation in order to destabilise the CCP, rattle Xi Jinping and embolden his opponents?
