Rumors: Beijing Launches Defense War, Police Forces Overrun, Xi Trembling in Fear!

Rumors spread. Army commander launches coup. Gun battles erupt in Jeongnanghae. Xi Jinping cursed by the entire nation. Military newspaper shows its cards against Xi. Rumors spread. Beijing Tianjin Hebei region launches. Defense war. Police forces overrun. Female professor fires salvo, leaving Xi trembling in fear. Mass exodus wave erupts inside the CCP. 2026 even harder. The ranks of the awakened are growing. CCP's economic deep freeze. This year, nothing matters more than survival. From disappointment to despair, a wave of whole family exodus emerges in 2026. Poland introduces new military regulation, banning Chinese vehicles from entering military bases. How will the US-Iran confrontation end? Welcome to today's episode of Decoding China. Everything you need to understand the latest developments is right here. Rumors spread. Army commander launches coup. Gun battles erupt in Jeongnanghae. Xi Jinping cursed by the entire nation. Military newspaper shows its cards against Xi. On the fifth day of the Lunar New Year, as tens of thousands of families were reuniting, Beijing had no fireworks. Yet reports of gunshots spread instead. Information circulated online, claiming that armed units carrying live ammunition had been urgently assembled. Armored vehicles were maneuvering at high speed, and soldiers in combat uniforms from different unit designations were rapidly deployed, advancing directly toward Jeongnanghae. According to political commentator Chen Pekong, at around 7 a.m. on February 21, the fifth day of the Lunar New Year, multiple armed units were seen moving toward the core power district. Videos shared online showed soldiers in tight formation, visibly tense, with numerous military trucks and armored vehicles appearing on key thoroughfares. Another source claimed that intense gunfire had erupted within the Jeongnanghae compound. Two specific lines of analysis emerged around the incident. The first suggested that the movement could have been initiated by a faction within the military. The second posited that a confrontation had occurred between units loyal to different figures at the top of the political hierarchy. The name of Army Commander Li Kaoming surfaced frequently in speculation. Regarded as a general with substantial operational authority, he commands the main ground combat forces. Some sources argued that if any military action were underway, the ground forces under his leadership would be a decisive factor. However, no evidence has confirmed his direct involvement. Simultaneously, the military's official media published several notable commentaries. On February 20th, the Great Wall Outlook column of the PLA Daily carried an article titled Maintain Strategic Resolve, Execute Tactical Precision. It included a pointed line. Amid blooming flowers and dense willows, only those who know how to cut through can demonstrate capability. In raging winds and moments of crisis, only those who stand firm reveal true foundations. That same day, another column, Tengen on Warfare, published Only When Information Flows, Freely Can the Combat System Be Strong, emphasizing four priorities, detect the enemy first, judge the enemy first, decide first, act first. In the absence of any military conflict across the Taiwan Strait, the stress on acting first was widely interpreted as referring to internal military rectification, particularly following upheavals involving the rocket force and several senior officers. For the rumor of a coup in Zhongnanhai on the fifth day of the Lunar New Year, Chen Pekong believes there is another possibility. Troops loyal to Zhang Yuxia and Liu Zhenli may have clashed with Beijing garrison officers loyal to Xi Jinping. Because currently, the Beijing garrison commander is former Shanghai Armed Police Corps commander Chen Yuan, who took over. It is rumored that Chen Yuan bears responsibility for the death of former CCP Premier Li Keqiang. Therefore, Beijing garrison officers may not submit to him. After Zhang Yuxia and Liu Zhenli were detained, social media users in multiple provinces posted images of military vehicles on highways and soldiers running in formation through urban streets. Reports claimed that multiple security perimeters were established around Zhongnanhai, while Tiananmen Square saw a heavy presence of personnel dressed in black, conducting security duties. Of course, the authenticity of the above revelations cannot yet be verified. But after Zhang Yuxia and Liu Zhenli were arrested, the CCP military has indeed shown many abnormalities. For example, during this year's Chinese New Year, generals in many theater commands unusually chose to reduce outings or even not return home, but spent the New Year with soldiers in the barracks. Meanwhile, developments on the propaganda front drew equal attention. On Douyin, during late night and early morning hours, original Lunar New Year greetings delivered in Hu Jintao's own voice resurfaced. The reappearance of the unedited recording in the current climate was widely viewed as a test of boundaries. At the same time, an even more explosive piece of information is circulating within regime circles, Wen Jiabao's anger. The message claims that Wen Jiabao expressed fury in internal settings, directly pointing out that Xi Jinping's family is allegedly involved in certain cross-border gray industries in places like northern Myanmar and Cambodia. If the rumor is true, it means the anti-corruption narrative may be beginning to turn against power itself, and family issues are becoming discussable topics again. This in itself is a major signal. In the era of one supreme authority, when power is absolutely personalized, subjects of this scale would have been almost impossible to pass censorship. Yet they appeared, not in a single location, but across multiple regions simultaneously. That resembles systemic loosening, rather than an accidental oversight. Xi Jinping's realm is no longer a seamless iron plate. Fissures are beginning to show. The civil war is now self-destructing, both Xi and the CCP. Rumors spread. Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region launches. Defense war. Police forces overrun. Female professor fires salvo, leaving Xi trembling in fear. Mass exodus wave erupts inside the CCP. The Red Empire, controlled by the Chinese Communist Party, once appearing solid and unshakable, is now experiencing comprehensive internal erosion. A female professor publicly criticized the regime, bluntly stating that the forebears of today's political elites were nothing more than bandits, who seize territory and proclaim themselves rulers. Her remarks directly challenged the legitimacy of the CCP's claimed lawful succession. The figure at the center of the controversy is Lei Yanhong, a professor at the School of Public Affairs of Xiamen University. In widely circulated online remarks, she stated, Please be silent. You say the country was won by your fathers? The Yangtze River, the Yellow River, the Kunlun Mountains, Mount Tai, Mohe, and the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau all existed long before you. Your fathers were merely bandits who occupied mountains and declared themselves kings. What are you proud of? These comments strike at the core narrative of winning and preserving the country through struggle, a foundational pillar of CCP historical education and political propaganda. According to Lei Yanhong's reasoning, if the land was not won but simply existed, then dynastic transition was not a revolutionary epic but an act of power seizure. For a regime that consistently claims to serve the people while increasingly centralizing authority in the hands of Xi Jinping, this represents a direct challenge to political legitimacy. Lei, born in the 1970s, studied at Peking University and the University of Tokyo, specializing in political institutions and public finance. In 2015, she sparked controversy by criticizing the cult of Mao Zedong on social media, suggesting that her current stance is consistent rather than impulsive. At the societal level, public sentiment has surfaced through concrete events. During the 2026 Lunar New Year, residents in Beijing, Tianjin, and Hebei openly defied fireworks bans and set off large quantities of firecrackers on New Year's Eve and the first day of the New Year. Videos showed police struggling to keep pace with enforcement. Online commentators dubbed the phenomenon the fireworks defense campaign. Some netizens remarked that although Hebei province had banned both sales and use, everyone somehow had fireworks at night, yet no one would say where they bought them. Fireworks restrictions have fluctuated in recent years, but this year's coordinated defiance directly tested the authorities' enforcement capacity. Amid declining incomes and rising unemployment, fireworks took on symbolic meaning, becoming a visible expression of dissatisfaction. In Nanjing, large crowds gathered at the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum. Online comment sections were filled with phrases such as democracy, civil rights, people's livelihood, and the world belongs to all. Within the system, internal tightening has intensified. A January report by the Jamestown Foundation named several figures with extensive overseas ties and close relatives abroad, including Lin Shengli, president of Renmin University of China. According to sources cited by the South China Morning Post, authorities expanded scrutiny beyond so-called naked officials to include semi-naked officials, those stationed domestically but with children settled overseas. By the end of 2025, several senior figures were removed from advisory positions, including Yi Gang, former governor of People's Bank of China, and Wang Rong, former chairman of the Guangdong Provincial Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. Circulating reports suggested that their children's residence abroad and reluctance to return were contributing factors. However, the CCP's intensified efforts to tighten control have only made many officials more eager to flee the suffocating authoritarian system. Economically, official GDP growth for 2025 was reported at around 5%, but 2026 forecasts have been revised downward. UBS projects 4.5% growth, Goldman Sachs forecasts 4.8%, while other institutions estimate approximately 4.1%. Youth unemployment stood at 16.5% in December 2025 and has remained elevated. More than 5,300 protest incidents were recorded in 2025, representing a 44% increase from the previous year, primarily involving labor disputes, homeowner rights claims, and rural land conflicts. Internationally, pressure has intensified. On February 17, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the appointment of a special coordinator for Tibetan issues. On February 18, the official White House account under Donald Trump released a list of 22 trade partners listing Taiwan and displaying Taiwan's national flag, an act that drew widespread attention and was viewed as symbolically significant. Taken together, academic challenges to legitimacy, visible social dissatisfaction, intensified internal purges, slowing economic growth, rising protest incidents, and sustained external pressure, the overall picture reveals mounting systemic strain. As analyst Gu Feng has pointed out, the historical factors leading to the collapse of authoritarian regimes include economic crisis, social unrest, elite fragmentation, loss of legitimacy, and external pressure, elements that have now emerged to varying degrees. Although high-intensity repression may maintain stability in the short term, the situation resembles a pressure cooker that could explode at any moment due to an unforeseen event. The 2027 Party Congress is widely viewed as a hurdle that Xi Jinping may find difficult to overcome. 2026 even harder? The ranks of the awakened are growing. CCP's economic deep freeze. This year, nothing matters more than survival. It has become extremely difficult. There is no rice left, truly no rice left. In a video, a man stated bluntly that many families around him had run out of rice and shops were shutting down one after another. He said he had already closed his own business and was staying home to get through the new year before trying to find another job. When asked whether he felt happy, he answered, If there's no food to eat, what is there to be happy or unhappy about? Similar situations have appeared in multiple locations. In Huizhou, along Renmin Road, once a crowded commercial strip, the night market was deserted. A large supermarket had closed, and even the courier pickup station in front of a residential building had suspended operations. I'm not exaggerating. There are simply no people, one man filming the scene said. The pressure on middle-aged workers has become increasingly visible. They carry mortgages, support parents, and raise children. Business bankruptcies, layoffs, and wage cuts have pushed many families into survival mode. One man said bluntly, We're just getting through one day at a time. Aspirations of larger homes or better cars have been replaced by a single hope. That no unexpected crisis strikes the family. A 36-year-old admitted he had isolated himself at home for a long period, hesitating to post videos for fear of ridicule, but ultimately decided to speak out because there's no way back anymore. According to a man surnamed me in Henan, the year 2025 could be summarized in two words, struggling to survive. Everyone was struggling. As for 2026, he described it as uncertain. Young people do not know what to pursue. Jobs are scarce. Opportunities to start a business are far fewer than a few years ago. He stated plainly that very few young people today still have clear goals. Some analysts argue that if high unemployment, mounting debt, and declining income continue, the risk of social instability will grow. They have even raised the possibility of uprisings similar to those led by Li Zicheng or Chen Sheng and Wu Guang in Chinese history. The reasoning is specific. Cities offer no jobs. Rural areas provide no viable land-based income. Workers are losing their means of survival. When there are no alternatives left, survival itself may drive them to revolt. According to these assessments, this trend has already begun to spread. Observers emphasize that migrant workers constitute a vast segment of the population. If this group were pushed to the brink and mobilized simultaneously, the effect could spread like wildfire, ultimately shaking the foundations of CCP rule. This is no longer a single complaint voiced in isolation. It is a pattern of sentiment appearing repeatedly across different regions. Regarding the labor market after the new year, one prediction has drawn attention—that it will collapse. The person making this forecast provided three specific reasons. First, more people chose not to return home this year compared with previous years. If one is currently in their hometown, it is noticeable that many childhood friends stayed away, choosing to remain elsewhere. Second, the number of people heading out for work has surged sharply. Individuals who previously worked in real estate sales, construction sites, hotels, or property agencies are now flooding into factory jobs. This occupational shift has dramatically intensified competition in industrial zones. Third, the pace of job-seeking this year is markedly more urgent. Before the holiday, many people had already booked tickets and secured positions in advance. As a result, genuinely desirable positions were filled by the 7th or 8th day of the new year. Anyone waiting until the 9th or 10th day would find no real options left. The remaining openings are typically those that earlier applicants rejected or could not handle. This, according to the account, reflects the most realistic picture of the situation. Therefore, the advice repeated with emphasis is straightforward. If you plan to leave home to earn a living after the new year, go as early as possible. Going later means fewer choices and worse conditions. From disappointment to despair, a wave of whole-family exodus emerges in 2026. As 2026, the year of the red horse, begins, China's economy is facing unprecedented structural challenges. On the surface, major international institutions still forecast growth in the range of 4.5 percent to 4.8 percent. However, the primary drivers are exports and policy stimulus rather than domestic consumption. A continued downturn in the property sector, restructuring in industries burdened by excess capacity, and a gradual decline in net export contributions suggest that the long-anticipated rebalancing toward domestic demand has yet to materialize. The labor market remains a clear bottleneck. Youth unemployment is hovering around 17 percent, though real figures may reach as high as 50 percent. In 2026, more than 12 million university graduates will enter the job market, while fewer than 11 million new positions are expected to be created. This supply-demand gap intensifies competition, suppresses wage expectations, and directly constrains household consumption. These figures align with Professor Ren Zhentao's warning about growing anxiety among young people regarding their future prospects. The property sector continues to be the largest drag on growth. Sales, new housing starts, and investment are projected to decline by an additional 5 percent to 10 percent, directly shaving 0.5 to 1 percentage point off GDP. High inventory levels, ongoing price adjustments, strained developer cash flows, and weak homebuyer sentiment mean that any market bottom is likely to be gradual. Although some local governments have relaxed restrictions, land sale revenues have dropped sharply, limiting fiscal flexibility at the local level. Deflationary risks are becoming more pronounced. Authorities have called for a reasonable rebound in prices, yet core CPI remains subdued. Wage growth lags behind rising living costs, producing characteristics associated with stagflation. Weak growth, insufficient demand, and localized cost pressures co-existing in the same environment. Corporate profitability is under strain, and microeconomic vitality remains limited. Demographic pressures are intensifying. The proportion of the population aged 65 and above has exceeded 23 percent, while the working-age population continues to shrink. Birth rates have fallen to record lows. This combination increases the long-term burden on social security systems and lowers the economy's potential growth rate. The Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business characterizes 2026 as a year of consolidation, citing escalating geopolitical tensions, the acceleration of the AI revolution, energy transition pressures, and the need for industrial upgrading as central challenges. Beijing has launched the 15th Five-Year Plan, 2026 to 2030, prioritizing technological self-reliance, high-end manufacturing, energy security, and high-quality development, with the stated aim of moving beyond dependence on low-value-added capacity. In the short term, however, weak domestic demand and external uncertainties constrain the possibility of a strong rebound. Exports remain the principal pillar of growth, supported by improved manufacturing competitiveness and a rising share of high-tech exports. Yet net export contributions are expected to gradually narrow, especially amid rising global trade protectionism. Research by Citigroup emphasizes that macro-level stability masks a chill at the micro-level. Weak consumption, employment uncertainty, and debt-driven deflation risks are intertwined. The report argues that structural reforms, rather than short-term stimulus, are required to address these underlying issues. At the same time, analysts on the X platform observe a shift toward a wartime industrial logic, decoupling high-tech development from the property cycle and focusing on global electrification and new energy industries. This strategy prioritizes industrial capacity and security, but it has also intensified domestic involution, or excessive internal competition. The result is mounting survival pressure on businesses, particularly in the private sector and among small and medium-sized enterprises. As profit margins narrow and the domestic market shows no clear recovery, maintaining cash flow and expanding investment become increasingly challenging, highlighting the widening gap between statistical stability on paper and the real condition of the production and consumption sectors. Poland introduces new military regulation, banning Chinese vehicles from entering military bases. On February 17, the Polish military issued a statement emphasizing that modern vehicles equipped with advanced sensors, communication systems, satellite positioning, and cloud connectivity possess extensive capabilities to collect and transmit data. If such vehicles enter military zones, even basic travel data, such as routes, positioning, and frequency of movement, could reveal the location of bases, spatial layouts, internal road structures, and operational patterns. When vehicles are further equipped with cameras, autonomous driving systems, high-performance computing units, and digital mapping technologies, the associated security risks increase substantially. Accordingly, Poland has not only barred Chinese-made vehicles from entering military facilities, but has also prohibited official military phones from connecting to the infotainment systems of such vehicles. However, the military clarified that the measure is preventive in nature. If certain functions are disabled and additional security safeguards required by individual facilities are fully implemented, such vehicles may still be granted access to designated secure areas under specific conditions. Wang Siwen, an assistant researcher at Taiwan's Institute for National Defense and Security Research, noted that amid assessments that China has intensified overseas intelligence collection, particularly as Beijing has been accused of providing high-tech support to Russia during the war, Poland's heightened vigilance is understandable. As a country bordering Ukraine and the first in the world to recognize Ukraine's independence after the Soviet era, Poland faces unique geopolitical pressures that place national security at the forefront. Market data indicate that Chinese-branded vehicles are gaining ground in Poland. According to statistics from the Polish market research firm IBRM-Samar, Chinese brands accounted for more than 8% of newly registered vehicles in Poland last year. This growing market share suggests that access to sensitive infrastructure is no longer a remote hypothetical risk. Poland may not be acting alone for long. Several Eastern European countries, particularly the Baltic states, are likely to respond similarly. Wang also pointed out that China itself has imposed restrictions on foreign electric vehicles entering sensitive or military areas within its own territory. From this perspective, Poland's move could be viewed as a reciprocal security response amid intensifying strategic competition. From Australia, Dr. Linsong of the Sydney Chinese School suggested that NATO and European Union countries should consider adopting comparable measures to reduce the risks of surveillance, eavesdropping, and data collection. Experts observe that while countries may adjust their strategies in response to economic or political considerations, the broader trend of prioritizing national security remains unchanged. As smart vehicles increasingly function as mobile data platforms, the boundary between civilian technology and defense infrastructure is becoming progressively blurred. Whether Poland's move will evolve into a new norm in European security policy remains to be seen. How will the U.S.-Iran confrontation end? In January, the USS Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group conducted patrol operations in the Caribbean, and according to released information, U.S. forces arrested Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. In February, America's largest aircraft carrier moved toward the Middle East, positioning itself at Iran's doorstep and pushing the long-running confrontation between Washington and Tehran into a new and dangerous phase. President Donald Trump's actions appear unpredictable, even shocking, yet he has also delivered outcomes that previous administrations failed to achieve. Since Hugo Chávez seized power in 1999, Venezuela has spiraled into economic collapse. At the time, segments of the American left applauded Chávez as a pioneer of socialism. The subsequent reality, however, was economic breakdown, mass migration across borders, the expansion of drug trafficking networks, and Caracas becoming a hub for anti-U.S. Forces in South America? From Bill Clinton to George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden, Washington applied various forms of pressure without fundamentally reversing the trajectory. Now, with Maduro detained and oil shipments to Cuba cut off, the balance has shifted visibly. Although Maduro's political apparatus remains nominally in place in Caracas, major policy decisions must now factor in Washington's stance. On the Iran file, Trump currently holds significant room for maneuver. He could attempt to topple the clerical regime in Tehran, allow Israel broad latitude to act, or pursue a deal that grants the regime renewed breathing space. He has positioned himself as a hard-edged negotiator. Trump is currently the most visible and powerful figure in global politics. Yet the Iran crisis cannot persist indefinitely. Trump can maintain strategic ambiguity for a time, but eventually he must choose a direction. Once the first decision is made, subsequent steps become constrained along the same strategic trajectory, bringing mounting risks and costs. Iran is widely regarded as a calculating and resilient adversary. At the same time, the clerical leadership in Tehran faces a U.S., president known for unpredictability and assertive action. It is, in essence, a high-stakes chess match in which both sides fully understand the risks embedded in every move. We'd love to hear your perspective. Leave a comment below and share your thoughts. 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