Amid large-scale cancellations of flights at Beijing airport and massive military build-up in Beijing, rumours about a coup in China are going around for the last few days. It has been claimed by many that President Xi Jinping has been removed from the post, and that he has been put under house arrest by PLA. However, nothing has been confirmed till now, and probably the rumours are not true.
In the last few days, several Chinese social media handles had claimed that Xi Jinping has been stripped of his military powers and is under house arrest. It was claimed that the ‘coup’ took place when the Chinese premier was in Samarkand in Uzbekistan to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit. According to the rumours, when Jinping was in Samarkand, his distractors in the party convinced the party’s top leadership to remove Jinping from the leadership of the army.
北京惊传：14日习出访中亚，当天下午胡温成功说服前任常委宋平，并在当天晚上控制了中 央 警 卫 局。单线通知了江曾和在京中 央 委 员，原来的常委们，以举手表决行式，罢黜了他的军权，当他知道后，16日晚返京，在机场被控制，现软禁在中 南 海 家中，十九届七 中全会将宣布真像。暂无法求证。 pic.twitter.com/bVUQMwToZg
— 新高地官推 官网：https://www.newhighlandvision.com/ (@5xyxh) September 22, 2022
According to News Highland Vision, former Chinese President Hu Jintao and former Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao had persuaded Song Ping, the former member of the Politburo Standing Committee to take the control of the Central Guard Bureau (CGB) from Jinping.
Central Guard Bureau is a specialised organisation responsible for the protection of senior party members including Jinping, their families, and important foreign dignitaries in China.
After control of CGB was taken away from Jinping, the Politburo Standing Committee abolished Xi’s military authorities, it was claimed.
When Xi Jinping found out about the development, he immediately returned to Beijing, but he was apprehended at the airport on 16th September and was put under house arrest at Zhongnanhai, the rumours claimed. It is notable that the central headquarters for the Chinese Communist Party, the State Council of China, and the office of the Chinese Premier among other offices are located at Zhongnanhai in Beijing. It is also being said that the current situation in China is being controlled by former president Hu Jintao.
To add fuel to the rumour, a video was shared widely on social media claiming that it showed a large contingent of Chinese People’s Liberation Army left for Beijing, and the convoy was 80 km long.
9月22日，中共解放军大部队开往北京。军队的车头在北京怀来，车尾在河北省张家口，行军队伍长达80公里。 pic.twitter.com/zx6YE591C6
— 谢万军 Wanjun Xie (@wanjunxie) September 23, 2022
Among many others, this claim with the video was also shared by Chinese activist Wanjun Xie. He wrote that the front of the convoy had reached Huailai near Beijing, while the end was at Zhangjiakou in Hebei Province, and therefore the convoy was 80 km road.
However, the video shared with the claim is less than 1 minute long which shows few military vehicles on the road, therefore the claim of an 80 km long military convoy could not be proven.
Another event that added to the speculation was the large-scale cancellation of flights at Beijing airport. It has been reported by many that around 6000 flights have been cancelled at the airport, with the claim that the flights over Beijing have been cancelled for military operations in view of the coup. Some reports said that 60% of flights were cancelled instead of 6000.
While other claims are hard to verify as getting information out of China is difficult, this claim actually can be easily verified, as flights are tracked by several websites. And we have found that the claims of cancellations are correct. Flight tracking site flightradar24 shows that Beijing Capital International Airport has come to almost a standstill as relatively very few flights landed at and took off from the airport.
The portal also shows that a large number of flights scheduled at the airport are either cancelled or their status is unknown. On the other hand, the portal shows that other major airports in China, like Shanghai and Hong Kong are operating normally.
Therefore, the claim that Beijing airport has seen a large number of flight cancellations is true, which can be verified from flight tracking sites.
However, it can’t be verified whether the cancellations are linked to the alleged coup in Beijing, or it is due to other reasons. There are some reports claiming that the flights were cancelled due to a military exercise which was announced in advance.
Activist and author Jennifer Zeng, who had also made the claim on the 80 km long military convoy to Beijing, tweeted today that the rumour about Xi’s arrest is not true.
Someone told me that he knows the family of a #CCP admiral, the rumor about Xi’s arrest is not true. I’ll talk about what is happening in China tonight, titled: “Is Xi Under Arrest After Military Coup? 3 Senior Anti-Xi Officials Sentenced to Death”. Sub: https://t.co/BdIj4wQv2r
— Jennifer Zeng 曾錚 (@jenniferatntd) September 23, 2022
However, even if the rumours of the coup are false, there are enough pointers showing that something could be brewing in Beijing. Xi Jinping attended the SCO summit, but he was not present at the dinner attended by other leaders. Covid-19 was cited as the reason for the absence, but it didn’t convince everyone.
It is also being claimed that Xi Jinping was also not present at a high-level meeting on National Defence and Military Reform in Beijing on Wednesday. Although he was already back in Beijing from Uzbekistan, he didn’t attend the meeting which was attended by several senior military leaders, like Army Commander Liu Zhenli, and General Li Qiaoming, in charge of the Theatre Command of the North.
However, there are reports of Xi Jinping addressing the conference, which means that he did attend it, and the reports of him skipping the meeting could be incorrect.
Amid all the rumours, what is interesting is that Beijing has not issued any statement on the issue so far. However, sources in the Argentine embassy in China have categorically denied the claims. It is also notable that the ‘news’ of the coup was posted on social media by mostly Chinese activists living outside China, and anti-China Twitter handles from Nepal and Taiwan. Therefore, the veracity of the rumours was doubtful from the beginning, and by now it is almost certain that they were wrong, and Xi Jinping remains the President of China.
