Xi Jinping Rushes to Delete Zhongnanhai’s Address — Decapitation Phobia Becomes a Global Joke

Xi Jinping Rushes to Delete Zhongnanhai’s Address — Decapitation Phobia Becomes a Global Joke

[People News] Beijing has produced another super-sized joke. After Trump beheaded Maduro, Beijing’s Zhongnanhai directly “vanished” from the map.

Recently, some netizens discovered that Zhongnanhai can no longer be found on domestic maps, including Amap (Gaode), Baidu Maps, and Tencent Maps. Entering the three characters “Zhongnanhai” on these maps all returns the message: “Sorry, no related location was found in Beijing.” Some netizens also shared screenshots showing that when searching for “Zhongnanhai” on Amap, the result is redirected to Tongzhou District, Beijing.

This phenomenon quickly became the joke of the century on social media. Some netizens mocked: “Xi Jinping got scared stiff and made Zhongnanhai disappear from the map — as if the U.S. military uses Amap anyway.” Others said: “Are you afraid of the people? Every Beijinger knows where Zhongnanhai is. What are you feeling guilty about?”

What should have been calm and composed has now turned into frantic scrambling and crawling. The U.S. military’s lightning operation to capture Venezuelan President Maduro alive, followed on January 7 by the seizure of a Russian oil tanker, displayed enormous deterrent power to the CCP and Russia, leaving Beijing’s top leadership trembling and inevitably projecting the scenario onto themselves.

Trump’s powerful decisiveness and execution capability have sent chills down the backs of dictators around the world. The U.S. military’s decapitation capability is no joke. The complexity demonstrated in the operation to capture Maduro — the sophistication and tightness of intelligence, the training and preparation process, the precision of joint operations, and the action’s legitimacy and geopolitical strategic significance — is unprecedented. At present, no other military in the world can accomplish this. The U.S. military suffered zero casualties, subdued the enemy without fighting, and the CCP was completely kept in the dark. For the CCP, this was an enormous humiliation, irony, and deterrent.

After Maduro was captured alive, Xi Jinping habitually put himself in the target’s place and ordered “Eunuch Cai” to hurry up and ban Liang Jingru, for fear that ordinary people might again engage in emotional projection and flood social media with “Unfortunately, It’s Not You.”

Back in October 2025, an audio clip circulated widely online — a segment of Trump warning Xi Jinping not to use force against Taiwan. In it, Trump said: “Later I said the same thing to China’s Chairman Xi. I said, ‘You know, if you invade Taiwan, I will blow Beijing to smithereens.’ Xi thought I was crazy and said to me, ‘Beijing? You would bomb it?’ I said, ‘I have no other choice. I must bomb you.’”

After Maduro was captured alive, videos of this audio spread like wildfire on social media. The comment sections were full of applause, and no one doubted anymore that Trump was merely talking big. At this moment, Xi Jinping understands this even more clearly. He surely no longer believes Trump is crazy. The one close to going crazy is not Trump, but Xi Jinping.

Xi Jinping’s fear of Trump’s decapitation strategy may have external causes, but the more fundamental reason is internal. This kind of paranoid “map evaporation” directly stems from Xi Jinping’s anxiety about domestic security. In dictatorships where power is highly concentrated, any potential risk to the leader is regarded as a signal of regime crisis. Yet this precisely proves the fragility and anti-popular nature of totalitarian rule.

During the September 3, 2025 military parade, residents along both sides of Beijing’s Chang’an Avenue and its extension were ordered to draw their curtains, forbidden to open windows, and not allowed to linger on balconies. Kitchen knives and lighters had to be turned in, and gas use was prohibited. Nearby offices were vacated, and thousands of factories were shut down. Every residential building unit was guarded by soldiers and police; homeowners’ freedom was restricted and they could not move about at will. Large numbers of petitioners were intercepted in advance and forcibly sent back to their home regions. Dissidents and religious believers were placed under tight surveillance, with officials sent to their homes to threaten and harass them.

Treating the people as enemies, viewing the people as bandits, deceiving Heaven and deluding the people — this is the concentrated embodiment of Xi Jinping and the CCP’s political fallacy that “the country is the people, and the people are the country.” The Zhongnanhai map-erasure incident is merely a new sample of the CCP’s end-of-days political crisis management: from physically drawing curtains to isolate, to digitally blocking the power center on maps, it paints a picture of the Xi administration’s regime crisis landscape.

Accompanying the fear of regime collapse is Xi Jinping’s personal fear for his own survival. Since taking office, whenever Xi has engaged in overseas diplomatic activities, his security measures have been upgraded into a lavish and secretive “mobile fortress.” For example, during Xi’s July 1, 2017 visit to Hong Kong, security measures exceeded standard levels. Members of the Chinese delegation stayed in the five-star Grand Hyatt Hotel, with the two hotels combined offering more than 1,300 rooms. Xi stayed in the presidential suite at the Renaissance Harbour View Hotel, costing up to HKD 28,000 per night. For two nights, the room cost exceeded HKD 5 million, all paid for by taxpayers.

Assassination paranoia is a common ailment among dictators. Kim Jong Un travels with a dedicated toilet to prevent DNA leakage. Putin travels with a “feces briefcase,” with bodyguards monitoring his bathroom use. Xi Jinping goes even further. At the 2023 BRICS summit in South Africa, Xi’s team shipped mattresses, carpets, and a full set of furniture a month in advance to replace hotel facilities; even tableware was airlifted from China. This shows just how afraid Xi Jinping is of death and assassination.

The Zhongnanhai map deletion incident undoubtedly bears witness to Xi Jinping’s escalating fear. Yet this ostrich-like, ears-covering self-deception is not only absurd and laughable; it further erodes the CCP’s legitimacy, reducing Xi Jinping’s grand talk of “the East rising and the West declining” back to its true form: “hiding in the East and dodging in the West.”

(First published by People’s Report)
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