China, explained.
When President Xi Jinping disappears from public view for a period of time, speculation surges about his health or even a possible coup (Pedro Pardo/AFP via Getty Images)
Unverified claims about Beijing’s intentions can gain momentum precisely because China's opacity makes them impossible to disprove.
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The narrative trap: How we can misread ChinaThe narrative trap: How we can misread China
When making sense of China, fragments of information often form narratives that obscure reality. Our brains crave coherence, filling gaps with stories that feel true. Psychologists call this the narrative fallacy – the urge to impose order on ambiguity. In opaque systems like Beijing’s elite politics or the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), this instinct is magnified.
For instance, President Xi Jinping disappears from public view for a period of time, and speculation surges about his health or even a possible coup. An unconfirmed report of a Chinese submarine accident spreads online, quickly becoming a symbol of institutional rot. A benchmark year like 2027 enters the discourse, and it becomes shorthand for when war over Taiwan will begin.
Each claim has plausible context or hint of truth, which is exactly what makes it compelling. The danger comes when speculation calcifies into consensus, or when timelines and intent get conflated as facts.
Few figures in China attract more speculation than Xi himself. Throughout his rule, his periodic absences from public view have repeatedly triggered rumours about his health or political survival. In 2012, as he prepared to assume power, he abruptly cancelled meetings with foreign dignitaries and vanished for two weeks – prompting rumours about his fitness and leadership succession issues. A decade later, in 2022, social media erupted with claims that Xi had been deposed in a coup, citing military vehicles near Beijing and cancelled flights. These rumours, often originating from ideological opponents abroad, collapsed as soon as Xi re-emerged.
In complex, opaque environments, it is easy to conflate planning goals with intent.
Still, they resurface with some regularity, typically in late summer, coinciding with leadership retreats or major political events. This year, Xi’s absence from the BRICS Summit fuelled another round of speculation. Despite these cycles, Xi continues to govern without visible constraint.
The deeper insight lies not in the rumours themselves, but in what they reveal about how external observers interpret uncertainty.
Rumours are not limited to elite politics. They also surface in the security domain, sometimes with global resonance. In August 2023, a British tabloid reported that a Chinese nuclear submarine had suffered a fatal accident in the Yellow Sea. The story, based on an alleged leaked intelligence report, spread quickly. Experts soon flagged major technical inconsistencies, and no corroborating evidence emerged. Still, the story lingered for weeks. Around the same time, a separate claim surfaced: that Chinese missile crews had discovered warheads replaced with water – another vivid but unverified tale. Though ultimately debunked, both rumours reinforced perceptions of dysfunction within the PLA.
Students create a PLA-N 095 attack submarine after snowfall at Harbin Engineering University in Heilongjiang province, China (VCG via Getty Images)
In a system that rarely admits failure, silence can be seen as proof – a classic case of confirmation bias. These episodes show how stories can eclipse evidence, especially when they align with our assumptions. Analytical rigor means asking not just what we know, but why certain narratives stick.
Not all misleading narratives come from dramatic events or viral rumours. In 2010, a vague remark during a private diplomatic exchange was widely interpreted as China declaring the South China Sea a “core interest” on par with Taiwan or Tibet. Chinese officials never confirmed this publicly and later avoided the term altogether. Still, the idea stuck, shaping assumptions about Beijing’s red lines. Like many persistent myths, it endured not because it was proven, but because it was memorable and fit a familiar mental frame – a sign of the availability heuristic, where repetition creates the illusion of truth.
A persistent narrative in recent years has been the so-called “2027 invasion deadline”, the idea that China will move on Taiwan by that year. While the claim has lost traction among experts, it continues to surface in public commentary alongside other speculative timelines for a cross-Strait conflict. Its earlier spread illustrates how quickly ambiguous signals can harden into strategic orthodoxy. A milestone meant to mark military modernisation was interpreted by many as a countdown to war.
Once in circulation, the narrative shaped congressional testimony, media reports, and defence planning. The issue is less about the date itself than about how such stories fill knowledge gaps, often reinforcing assumptions. In complex, opaque environments, it is easy to conflate planning goals with intent. At the same time, sustained US attention to this window has arguably contributed to deterrence, signalling resolve and helping to mobilise resources for Taiwan’s defence. The challenge is to maintain strategic urgency without drifting into fatalism.
Interpreting China demands a mindset grounded in evidence rather than instinct. Healthy curiosity is important, but it must be paired with scepticism and an awareness of how easily compelling stories can lead us astray. The examples from Xi’s rumoured downfall to a fabricated submarine disaster to timelines for war all illustrate the risks of treating uncertainty as potential truths. As one veteran China-watcher observed, the “inherent opacity” of China’s system makes it easy for rumours to take hold, which only increases the responsibility to verify, not assume.
A clearer view of China will come not from tidy narratives but from analytical discipline: recognising the limits of what we know, distinguishing possibility from probability, and remaining alert to how fear and expectation shape the lens through which we interpret Beijing’s behaviour.
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