Video Producer: Shohini Bose
Video Editor: Puneet Bhatia
Social media was bustling with rumors on Saturday, 24 September, about Chinese President Xi Jinping being removed as the head of the People's Liberation Army (PLA). There was also some speculation about him being placed under house arrest.
The hashtag #ChinaCoup was trending on Twitter for a long time as well.
There has been no response from the Chinese government so far regarding these rumours. Xi's whereabouts within China have also not been confirmed.
“#PLA military vehicles heading to #Beijing on Sep 22. Starting from Huanlai County near Beijing & ending in Zhangjiakou City, Hebei Province, entire procession as long as 80 KM. Meanwhile, rumor has it that #XiJinping was under arrest after #CCP seniors removed him as head of PLA (sic),” tweeted Jennifer Zeng, who has more than 2,00,000 followers on Twitter.
"This video of military vehicles moving to Beijing comes immediately after the grounding of 59 per cent of the flights in the country and the jailings of senior officials. There's a lot of smoke, which means there is a fire somewhere inside the CCP. China is unstable," tweeted author Gordon G Chang. He has more than 1,97,000 followers on Twitter.
China's supreme leader recently attended the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit in Uzbekistan, where he held talks with several other heads of state like Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Vladimir Putin. In the former's case, it was the first face-to-face meeting since the 2020 border clashes worsened ties between India and China.
It is very likely that Xi is quarantining after that trip.
Aadil Brar, an Indian journalist who covers China, tweeted the same, stating that "Xi is most likely in quarantine after coming back from SCO. There is no coup. Looks like a lot of alt-media in India picked up the rumour."
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