Strange speculation arose on social media that Chinese President Xi Jinping has been placed under house arrest and has been sacked as the head of China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA).
This was not confirmed by either the Chinese Communist Party nor any state media.
Several Twitter users posted observations that military vehicles were seen moving to capital city Beijing. There were also murmurs about high-level officials being jailed.
"#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," one user tweeted.
"This video of military vehicles moving to Beijing comes immediately after the grounding of 59 per cent 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," said author Gordon G Chang.
A Twitter user took to Twitter to say that Xi Jinping is likely under quarantine after his return from Uzbekistan, where he attended the Shanghai Corporation Organisation (SCO) Summit, which may be why he wasn’t seen in public.
There also surfaced unverified reports about commercial flights being barred in Beijing airspace today, which were quickly dismissed by other users.
This rumour comes days after two former ministers were sentenced to death as part of China’s crackdown on corruption.