The possibility of Chinese President Xi Jinping being placed under house arrest has gone viral online. Social media articles claim that Xi Jinping has been arrested and demoted from his position as China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) leader.
State media and the Chinese Communist Party have not yet provided official confirmation.
Recently, Xi Jinping traveled to Uzbekistan for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Summit, where he met with several other state leaders. He also had his first face-to-face encounter with Prime Minister Narendra Modi since border disputes in 2020 soured relations between India and China.
Today, there were several tweets concerning Xi's apparent home imprisonment. Some even said that this was a military takeover and that PLA trucks had already begun to move in Beijing's direction.
On September 22, #PLA military trucks will travel to Beijing. The entire procession was up to 80 kilometers long, beginning in Huanlai County in Beijing and ending in Zhangjiakou City in the Hebei Province. A person named Jennifer Zeng tweeted, "Rumor has it that #XiJinping was arrested when #CCP leaders ousted him as leader of the PLA (sic).
"This footage of military trucks traveling to Beijing was released soon after the country's 59% aircraft were grounded, and prominent leaders were imprisoned. There is a fire within the building since there is a lot of smoke," said author Gordon G Chang.