Where there’s smoke there’s fire, as they say, and there is a column of smoke the likes of which we haven’t seen since July 64 AD pouring out of Beijing.

Xi Jinping is one of the most paranoid leaders in the world, securing his leadership by keeping the billion-odd population under ever-increasing systems of surveillance and censorship. He came to power under a similar veil of darkness – rounding up, disappearing, and murdering those who posed a political threat to his reign.

It is worth reminding socialists in the West that this is what socialist states look like. Far from ‘equality’ and some kind of ‘citizen-run government’ you get the most brutal kind of hierarchy sustained by fear, abuses of human rights, and political plots.

Speaking of which, embattled communist Czar Xi Jinping has been struggling to hold onto power during the self-inflicted crisis of Covid. Welding the population into their homes like chickens in a battery farm is one thing, but destroying the commerce of Beijing upset a lot of prominent political rivals.

Watching Xi Jinping trend alongside Beijing and #ChinaCoup on social media over the weekend – and the subsequent speculation that it created – is a fascinating glimpse of how dictatorships may be fatally weakened in the digital age.

On that note, the rumours have been wild.

Some claimed that Xi Jinping had been placed under house arrest. Others insist that China is in the grip of a military coup. There was even a suggestion that the leader had already been overthrown by the People’s Liberation Army.

It was sparked by news that commercial flights over Beijing had been significantly reduced along with major disruptions to bus and train services, but the kindling that allowed otherwise benign news to reach scorching heights came from angry neighbours such as India and Taiwan. In particular, Taiwan is more than happy to stoke trouble after Xi Jinping’s Pacific politics destroyed Taiwan’s security, trade relationships, and international liberty all while China sticks little post-it notes all over Twitter threatening invasion.

No one can blame Taiwan for this. When a powerful communist dictatorship bent on the violent conquest of its neighbours (and fresh from suffocating Hong Kong in violation of international treaties) starts conducting military exercises within view – eroding the public authority of a paranoid leader can weaken them enough for their natural enemies to pounce.

India, which is currently occupying politically murky waters when it comes to the West, China, and Russia, has so far played an interesting role in blowing a little extra oxygen onto the flames.

Subramanian Swamy, an Indian politician and former Cabinet Minister with significant experience dealing with China and Pakistan, put out a series of tweets that gained international attention.

‘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.’

And then reblogged a tweet by Jennifer Zeng that read:

‘#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, rumour has it that #XiJinping was under arrest after #CCP seniors removed him as head of PLA.’

It is important to understand that this political jostling comes in the middle of India’s border skirmishes with China, as Swamy also tweets:

‘Today’s Indian Express front pages Russian envoy statement that Russia will stay away from India-China border tiff. This means end of Modi’s last hope of Russia interceding to help India settle with China. Now Modia should learn to stand alone.’

Russia has a longstanding and unusual relationship with India after the second world war and the Cold War, but it is not the same kind of close bond that the Commonwealth nations share.

India is careful to maintain peace with China while also having to deal with Chinese aggression along shared borders and unacceptable water blackmail where Beijing routinely threatens India with starvation by disrupting the flow of rivers out of China-controlled Tibet.

At the same time, Russia and China have been stringing each other along, not because they particularly like each other (after all, they are competing expansionist dictatorships snuggled into close quarters) but because they’re hoping to momentarily join forces to displace Western powers from the global order.

India, who also shares close historical and economic ties with the West, has been holding hands with both sides of this irreconcilable political marriage – but the outbreak of war in Ukraine and potential war in the Pacific over Taiwan (something India expressly does not want) may force India to pick sides.

Stirring trouble for the Chinese dictator is a solid strategy to take their powerful neighbour down a few pegs and allow India to regain regional strength. Ultimately, this would give it greater bargaining power over both Russia and the West.

Swamy is the same Indian politician who made those extraordinary complaints to the UK about the ethnic violence that has erupted in Leicester and Birmingham between Hindus and Muslims, so he is not afraid of stirring up foreign political leaderships.

All this makes for interesting political speculation, but what about the reality on the ground in Beijing?

Social media has not let up, with blue-tick commentators saying that ‘Xi Jinping is either dead or under house arrest in an apparent coup in China’.

In reality, Xi Jinping is seeking his third term in what is (in reality) a lifelong appointment. While it is highly unlikely that any of these rumours are true, it is true that the existence of these rumours could be part of a political coup by Xi Jinping’s political opposition who are looking to derail his leadership at this weak and critical moment.

Coordinated propaganda campaigns don’t arise from nowhere and in this case, India is helping Xi Jinping’s enemies knock him off the throne.

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