#ChinaCoup trends on Twitter; rumours say Xi Jinping under house arrest, military in-charge

Speculation about Chinese President Xi Jinping being placed under house arrest has taken over social media. Rumours are doing the rounds on social media that Xi has been removed as the chief of China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and China’s capital, Beijing, is currently under the army's control.

This comes a day after a former top security official was sentenced to life in prison by the Chinese court. He was believed to be part of anti-Xi “political clique”. Another two people associated with the group were similarly given suspended death sentences and three others received lengthy prison terms this week.

Meanwhile, other rumours circulating on the Internet include Li Qiaoming, the General serving for the Chinese PLA, has replaced Xi Jinping as China's ruler.

However, there is no official confirmation from the Chinese Communist Party or the state media about these rumours. 

A Chinese human rights activist Jennifer Zeng, who is now residing in the US, shared a video on Twitter and claimed the PLA was moving toward Beijing.

Zeng’s tweet reads: “#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.”

There are also rumours that both international and domestic flights to and from Beijing have been halted and that the city has been cut off from the rest of the world. More rumours claim nearly 60 per cent of flights in China were grounded without any explanation on Friday.

Gordon Chang, a Chinese author, also based in the US, replied to Zeng’s Tweet and wrote: “This video of military vehicles moving to #Beijing comes immediately after the grounding of 59% 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.”

Among Indians, BJP’s Subramanian Swamy took to Twitter and wrote: “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,”