Xi Jinping will be TOPPLED by rivals sick of China’s totalitarian regime within 18 months, claims expert

CHINA'S leader will be ousted by rivals fed-up with the country's totalitarian regime in the next 18 months, an expert has claimed.

Roger Garside - author of China Coup: The Great Leap to Freedom - believes Xi Jinping will be booted out by internal opponents within the Chinese Communist Party in a coup in Beijing.

The former diplomat claims China's "totalitarian dictatorship" is "outwardly strong but inwardly weak", arguing that the US needs to clamp down on the country to help pro-democracy plotters within the government.

He believes the main threat to President Xi will come from "within the top ranks" of the Communist Party - "but with an external force acting as well", he told DW News.

"The US and its allies have got to adopt a more aggressive strategy towards China," the author added.

"We can't dictate how China is governed. But we can and must engineer events.

"So that we help those who want to free China to do so."

Garside has suggested that liberalisation would be implemented from the top down, claiming a coup could be carried out in the next 18 months or so by Chinese leaders such as Premier Li Keqiang.

But another author, James Mann - who has penned three books about the US and China - has argued that the idea of such a coup is "implausible".

Writing in the , he said: "For starters, there is not the slightest indication that Chinese leaders have either the desire or the ability to stage a coup.