2022 China Coup Hoax
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Overview
2022 China Coup Hoax refers to a series of false online rumors spread in late September 2022 that elements of the Chinese military had supposedly initiated a coup d'etat against President Xi Jinping. The rumors were debunked by a variety of sources and proved to be based on a series of videos and claims that were not strictly accurate.
Background
Ahead of the opening of the 20th National Chinese Communist Party Congress on October 16th, 2022, where President Xi is expected to announce measures that will further consolidate his grip on power, tensions have been visible in China. Public chafing against strict coronavirus restrictions, mounting tensions over Taiwan and a global situation marked by increased economic difficulty and war have led many analysts to wonder about the stability of the Chinese regime.[7]
On September 24th, 2022, the hashtag "#ChinaCoup" trended on Twitter as posters amplified and discussed the possibility of a coup based on a series of pieces of viral media.[1] Researcher Atandra Ray, an analyst at LogicallyAI, a company that specializes in fighting fake news disinformation and contracts its services out to governments and corporations, visualized the sources of the misinformation in a chart posted the next day. Atandra Ray's post received over 3,000 likes in less than a day.[6]
Atandra Ray's findings showed that a handful of accounts with relatively low follower accounts were crucial in spreading the viral story. For example, Twitter user @loliwifegroomer, one of the accounts identified by Ray, posted a video of a building explosion (seen below) that actually happened in 2015.[2]
Footage coming from #Beijing during the #chinacoup against #XiJinping pic.twitter.com/Lye8LY7FwS
— 𝟨𝓉 (@LoliWifeGroomer) September 24, 2022
A number of the accounts particularly responsible for the spreading of misinformation about the coup were Indian (Ray connected this to the tensions between India and China over border regions). Ray also reported patterns that showed some accounts simply using the #ChinaCoup hashtag on unrelated posts in order to get more views. Further, Ray claimed to have traced the origin of the rumors back to a chain of replies (seen below) in a Chinese-language Twitter thread that showed General Li Qiaoming at an official function.[9]
Other news organizations also debunked the rumors as they spread and gained attention online.
Online Reactions
Memers online reacted both to the news and to its debunking. Some, like Twitter user @madrid_mike, (seen below) who received over 2,600 likes in less than a day for their September 25th, 2022, tweet, connected the China Coup to Dark Brandon. [8] Twitter user @talunvgals jokingly connected the events to a different world leader, the new British King Charles III (seen below right) receiving over 500 likes over the course of two days.[3]
A clip of Xi Jinping or a man who looks like him working at what appears to be a dumpling shop also circulated widely, with many posters joking that Xi Jinping had fled the country to seek employment at the restaurant.[5]
BREAKING: Xi Jinping has been found in a dumpling shop in Sicily. #XiJingping #chinacoup #China https://t.co/hSZmhv3MCO
— NooBanker⚡️🥷 (@Noobanker) September 24, 2022
Search Interest
External References
[1] Newsweek – Xi Jinping Trends Online Amid Coup Rumors, Canceled Flights
[2] Twitter – @LoliWifeGroomer
[3] Twitter – @talunavgals
[4] Twitter – @Abhi_rajput001
[5] Twitter – @IPC_Ka_Daddy
[6] Twitter – @atandra_ray
[7] Foreign Policy – What China Wants
[8] Twitter – @madrid_mike
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