Wild rumors circulated on various social media channels in Asia on Saturday: “Is China’s President Xi Jinping under house arrest?”, “Capital Beijing under army control”, “Military convoy on the way to the capital”. The rumors, which were mainly communicated on Twitter, were not confirmed by the Chinese state media until late followingnoon.
The background to the rumors may have been Xi Jinping’s trip to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Uzbekistan in mid-September. China expert Susanne Weigelin-Schwiedrzik tells KURIER that Xi has not appeared in public since returning to Beijing half a day early on the 16th.
At the summit, Xi had been conspicuously distant from Russia’s Vladimir Putin, a position consistent with the guidelines of the Politburo’s Standing Committee. After the Olympic Games in Beijing, this highest body had already criticized Xi’s too close proximity to Putin and, in a seven-day “retreat” with Xi, set China’s course towards the Ukraine war: neutral.
