China rumor: Xi Jinping either arrested or making mass arrests

China has maintained its irrational and ineffective "zero COVID" policy for a while, now, and a rumor has begun circulating that China's leader Xi Jinping either has been arrested or is doing the arresting of a huge number of rivals who represent a potential threat to his power as party elections gear up. I saw this rumor a day ago and have no confirmation of any substance, but supporters of the rumor cite (1) a major reduction in air traffic over Chinese airspace and (2) the presence of a People's Liberation Army convoy stretching up to 80 km and heading toward Beijing as signs that something big is going on in China. How people are putting these bits of information together and concluding there's a palace coup going on, I have no idea.

I found an article about flight cancelations on Epoch Times Premium, which is likely behind a paywall, so here's a partial quote:

Mass Cancellation of Flights Across China; Reasons Unclear

Nearly 60 percent of flights across China were canceled Wednesday, according to state media.

Flight Master said 9,583 flights had been canceled nationwide as of 22.35 p.m. on Sept. 21, accounting for 59.66 percent of those total scheduled journeys of the day, reported China.com.

[...]

There is no official explanation on China’s top aviation body’s website.

But Netease, a major news portal in China, wrote yesterday that the cancellations were mainly due to recent COVID-19 flare-ups in multiple provinces in China.

Former Chinese investigative reporter Zhao Lanjian tweeted yesterday that he’d contacted an aviation professional in China.

He wrote in his tweet that “the reason [for the mass cancellations] is unclear, but [the mass cancellations] are true,” and that such a nationwide mass cancellation was “very rare.”

According to Zhao’s tweet: “This mass cancellation of flights must be a military directive. Air traffic control authority is decided by the Chinese military, which in turn gives instructions to civil aviation management. The airspace is set aside so that military aircraft can fly at will. This is military planning, or at least with military prep.”

A tweet by reporter Jennifer Zeng is one major source of the rumor about Xi:

#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 pic.twitter.com/hODcknQMhE

— Jennifer Zeng 曾錚 (@jenniferatntd) September 23, 2022

I regularly watch China Uncensored on YouTube, and one thing the channel has long covered is the ongoing internal power struggle between current leader Xi, on one side, and Jiang Zemin on the other. Xi's grip on power is tenuous at best; there's plenty of infighting, even with Jiang being 96 years old. Is it possible that there's been a coup by Jiang's faction? It's certainly conceivable, but with China being as secretive as North Korea in many respects, we who live outside of China probably won't know anything resembling the truth anytime soon, if ever. But if, in a few months, the new "face of China" turns out to be someone other than Xi, then at that point, we'll know something big went down. With the CCP party congress happening in October, it's possible that Xi will be granted a third term, and Xi is apparently angling, in some way, to become president for life à la Vladimir Putin.

Power struggles in China aren't a sign of hope for Westerners concerned about human-rights issues: as The Who sang in "Won't Get Fooled Again": here's the new boss... same as the old boss. The people of China will still be under the yoke of the state no matter who's at the helm. Until the people gather up the courage to overthrow the government and the entire communist system (unlikely), nothing is ever going to change. (I could, at this point in history, say the same for the US.) Upshot: the flight cancelations and the 80-kilometer convoy could be much ado about nothing (do we even know how or why the PLA convoy is being associated with a coup?), or it could signify something big. Stay tuned.

ADDENDUM: I saw some derisively skeptical reactions to Zeng's tweet. I'm skeptical, too.

ADDENDUM 2: from The Liberty Daily:

No, There Was Not a Military Coup in China, and Xi Jinping Is Not Under House Arrest After Being Removed From CCP Leadership

There is always a fine line between being at the cutting edge of the news cycle and falling for a hoax. The internet moves fast and many news outlets like ours strive to be among the first to report when news breaks. The days when corporate media always got the scoops are behind us as citizen journalists and alternative media networks can move more nimbly.

Of course, there’s also the risk of spreading false rumors. Sometimes it just takes one credible source speculating about a report to get news agencies to jump.

The latest example of a “bombshell” circulating across some independent news outlets is that Chinese President Xi Jinping has been placed under house arrest following a military coup and has been removed from Chinese Communist Party leadership. The “evidence” thus far has been focused on three things:

1. Massive number of flights canceled over the last three days
2. Military vehicles seen on the highway
3. Gossip among U.S. intelligence sources

Then, there’s “hopium” — the desire that often translates into an addiction for positive news of any sort during times of duress. I would love nothing more than to post a retraction to this story, giddily declaring Xi is out. Unfortunately, that’s very unlikely to happen, but several alternative news outlets are running with the story anyway.

[The rest of the article is worth reading. There's an insinuation that the rumor may have come from Xi himself, and some experts are quoted as saying the Xi-under-arrest rumor might be false, but something strange is definitely happening inside the CCP.]

Get familiar with the slang terms hopium and copium, both of which have been in circulation for a while. As you can guess, they're derived from the words hope and cope, making a portmanteau with opium, and they have to do with the seductive and destructive power of both. People are talking, for example, about Democrats indulging in copium by writing positive articles about Democrat Katie Hobbs as Republican Kari Lake's prospects in Arizona continue to improve with the gubernatorial election drawing ever nearer.