"Something is up" with China and its President Xi Jinping, but "we don't know what it is," retired Air Force Brigadier Gen. Blaine Holt said Sunday on Newsmax in response to the rumors reports of an attempted coup against the two-term leader.
"I've been checking in with sources around the world, Hong Kong, and something is up," Holt, a Newsmax contributor, said on "Wake Up America," adding that Far East foreign affairs expert Gordon Chang was "exactly right" Saturday when he said that while the rumors appear to be untrue, there is a "lot of smoke."
Holt noted that Xi Jinping and his delegation had been at the meeting of the council of the heads of state at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Uzbekistan and had "stopped at the very last event, a banquet."
"They raced to the airport because something made them have to get back to China immediately and then about 24 hours later, the rumors started to trickle in that maybe there had been a coup," said Holt.
In addition, he said, "7,800 flights have been canceled in the last 48 hours out of China [and] there's a lot of really weird WeChat buzz going back and forth with the people."
"Here's the problem: We haven't seen Xi, the denials have not been steady, and there hasn't been any thoughtful response from the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) yet," said Holt. "So could there have been a coup? Maybe, but something is wrong and the power elite is so close to where they're supposed to select their new leader."
In Saturday's interview, Chang told Newsmax that the reports of a coup are growing just weeks before China is to have its 20th National Congress, beginning Oct. 16.
"That's where Xi Jinping either gets or doesn't get his unprecedented third term as general secretary of the party: in other words, China's ruler," said Chang. "And that means, I think, that we see some senior figures figure that they can try to give Xi Jinping a punch in the gut before then."
Further, Holt pointed out Sunday that there has been a bank run in the Hunan and Heibi provinces, "where 400,000 people have lost billions and billions of dollars" but have been told "nothing but lies."
"We know their economy has gone into the sewer with a very underreported and lied about real estate crisis," said Holt. "They're going through this zero-COVID lockdown policy, which has the people very upset, and there is a food security issue in the country…the other thing we know is that there has been a column of vehicles on its way to Beijing that are all military, and so other than rumors, we're just going to have to wait and see if we can get something direct out of Beijing."
It's also known that the Shanghai faction of the CCP is "really at odds" with Xi, and "was probably going to be trying to displace him at the National Congress," said Holt. "Now he's disappeared and so we should see him step up very soon. "
Holt also discussed Russian President Vladimir Putin's call to mobilize 300,000 more troops and his threats of nuclear weapons, as well as the news that Russians are pushing back against being sent to Ukraine, including searching online for ways to break their arms.
"You're seeing all the borders flooded with people trying to get out of the country," he said. "This is their basic vote and response to Putin taking this way too far in the Russians' eyes and the suffering that they've felt economically. Putin's definitely got problems keeping his unity together in his own government, and he's made some very grave threats against the west."
Those threats must be taken seriously, said Holt, as Putin is "probably a dying man."
"We believe he's sick [and] he's desperate to get some sort of resolution at a time when it's going to be very hard for the pitiful forces he does have in Ukraine to fight in the rain and the snow and the slog," said Holt. "At the same time, the energy crisis in Europe is going to be devastating."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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