Twitter is buzzing and the biggest rumour it has dropped is the possibility of the Chinese President Xi Jinping being placed under house arrest after what is being dubbed an alleged coup to dethrone him from his presidential chair.
The rumour goes – Xi Jinping has been removed as the head of China’s People’s Liberation Army or PLA and has been placed under house arrest. All this allegedly due to an ongoing anti-Jinping campaign in the country.
There have been reports of some sort of revolt within the China’s People’s Liberation Army over the ‘Zero Covid Policy’ in China that mandates anyone who travels out of the country to undergo a rigorous quarantine process.
The buzz suggests that the ‘coup’ was to be planned and executed when Xi was in Samarkhand for the SCO summit that saw a slew of top leaders coming face-to-face including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.
There has been no official confirmation yet from the Chinese Communist Party or the state media.
BJP leader Subramanian Swamy too weighed in on the and tweeted saying the rumour ought to be checked out.
Author Gordon G Chang reposted a tweet that claims to show off ‘videographic proof’ of the rumour. According to the tweet, PLA military vehicles were spotted heading to Beijing on Sep 22. More unverified reports on Twitter that add to the rumour include that of the reports of no commercial flights flying over Beijing. Some China experts however claim that there are no actual signs of a coup yet beyond the commentary on social media.
According to Aadil Brar, an expert on China, the reason Xi Jinping has been missing from public limelight because he could simply be in quarantine after his return from Uzbekistan, keeping up with the general ‘Zero Covid Policy’ in the country.
“More evidence to disprove the ‘coup’ rumour. Xi’s congratulatory letter to China News to mark the 70th anniversary was published yesterday around 2:30 PM Beijing time. He will reemerge in public in the next few days,” Brar tweeted along with the image of the letter by the Chinese President.
The rumour comes amid a spate of high-profile cases and sentences this past couple of months that are a part of China’s ongoing anti-corruption campaign ahead of a political meeting next month where President Xi Jinping is expected to secure an unprecedented third term.
