ZeroHedge | by Tyler Durden Thursday, Sep 29, 2022 – 04:05 AM
So much for the “coup in China” and “Xi is missing” rumor mill of the past week, which at one point saw Chinese President Xi Jinping’s name trending high on Twitter…
“Chinese President Xi Jinping visited an exhibition in Beijing on Tuesday, according to state television, in his first public appearance since returning to China from an official trip to Central Asia in mid-September – dispelling unverified rumours that he was under house arrest.”
He had arrived in Samarkand, Uzbekistan on September 15 – and attended the days-long Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit – where he met with Russian President Vladimir Putin, among others.
Importantly, it had been his first foreign trip in two years. Xi had not traveled outside of the country since before the Covid-19 pandemic began.
But upon returning the Beijing, he hadn’t been seen in the public eye since that mid-September trip, fueling speculation and rumors in the West and on social media. Some pundits floated the idea that he had been under “house arrest” amid political instability and a possible coup attempt.
According to a Tuesday Bloomberg description of the Chinese leader’s “re-emergence” in the public eye, which has effectively ended the bizarre rumors:
Xi, wearing a mask, visited an exhibition in Beijing on Tuesday about China’s achievements over the past decade, state-run news outlet Xinhua reported. The Chinese leader was accompanied by the other six members of the Politburo Standing Committee, a sign of unity after rumors circulated on Twitter about a challenge to his power.
He’ll likely cinch his third five-year term as leader at the major Chinese Communist party’s (CCP) meeting on October 16. The CCP meeting comes only once every half-decade.