Military actions by the US and Israel against Iran have reached their 18th day, dominating headlines worldwide.
However, another name has recently emerged frequently in foreign media outlets.
A bespectacled man standing before a blackboard in a teaching video is being widely shared. His name is Jiang Xueqin, currently a Western philosophy teacher at an international high school in Beijing. Two years ago, in a now-viral video, he accurately predicted Donald Trump’s election win and the US’s attacks on Iran.
His YouTube channel has surged from tens of thousands of subscribers to 2.04 million. Netizens have given him the nickname ‘China’s Nostradamus’. The 16th-century Jewish prophet accurately predicted major historical events including the French Revolution, the rise of Napoleon, and Hitler’s ascent to power.
Following the attention, Jiang Xueqin made another shocking ‘prediction’, stating that the US would lose its war against Iran. Will his prophecy come true?
Analyzing the past, predicting the future
Jiang Xueqin skyrocketed to fame after his video recorded during a class in May 2024. In the video, he stands before a blackboard, elaborating and drawing diagrams. He boldly predicts that Trump will win the election and that the US will go to war with Iran between 2025 and 2026.
At that time, the primary elections for the 2024 US presidential election were nearing their end.
According to mainstream polls, Biden held a significant lead, while Trump faced four criminal lawsuits, including accusations related to the Capitol riots. Confident Biden invited Trump for two offline debates ahead of time.
·Screenshot of Jiang Xueqin’s course video ‘Geopolitical Strategy: The Iran Trap’.
However, Jiang Xueqin has his unique insights regarding the election outcome. He indicated that economic issues such as inflation and manufacturing outflows often do not reflect in polling but will express themselves through ballots on election day. Furthermore, Trump aimed to mobilize those who supported him in 2016 but did not vote in 2020. In Jiang’s view, this group of voters exceeded media perception.
As Jiang anticipated, not long after, Biden’s approval ratings began to decline, hitting their lowest levels since 2022.
In the video, Jiang also presented another significant judgment: if Trump were to take office, he would definitely initiate military actions against Iran. He provided three reasons: first, the US cannot tolerate nations that challenge the dollar system; second, Israeli lobbying groups are behind this; and third, war and emergencies enhance a president’s influence over media and the military, paving the way for a third term.
Fast forward to February 28, two years later, the now-incumbent President Trump, having been in office for 14 months, launched airstrikes against Iran in collaboration with Israel. Almost simultaneously, Jiang Xueqin’s old video resurfaced online, leading to a widespread circulation of his name.
On the social media platform X, posts by political influencers sharing Jiang Xueqin’s videos appear regularly. One user commented: ‘Spending two hours watching a Netflix show is nothing compared to seeing what Jiang Xueqin has to say.’
On March 2, the American independent news program ‘Breaking Points’ invited him for an interview to discuss the conclusions of the US-Israel military operations against Iran. On March 12, British host Piers Morgan also had him on his talk show.
·Jiang Xueqin (right) in an interview with Piers Morgan. (Screenshot)
In the interview, Jiang Xueqin assessed that the military actions against Iran will leave the US in a passive position. He explained that a historical pattern is being confirmed once again: prolonged wars lead to the demise of hegemony. He cited the example of the Athenian expedition to Sicily in 415 BC, aimed at cutting off Spartan resources, which resulted in their total defeat and the end of Athens’ golden age.
Today, as events unfold, the US is beginning to experience the repercussions. Rising oil prices have increased domestic inflation, and political divisions have intensified. Anti-war sentiments are on the rise, international public opinion pressure continues to grow, and fractures are appearing in its relationships with allies. The British ‘Guardian’ pointed out that this war is becoming increasingly ‘expensive’ and complex for the US.
Jiang Xueqin’s X account features the signature: ‘I analyze the past to predict the future.’ His analytical framework for extrapolating future developments is termed ‘predictive history.’ This approach dissects decision-makers’ interests using game theory, seeks cyclical patterns from history, and supplements the logic with geopolitics.
Whether his predictions are accurate awaits further verification over time. As of now, he has become a highly visible figure on the internet.
“Yale graduates must succeed immediately”
Before becoming a YouTube influencer, Jiang Xueqin’s most notable label was that of a Yale University graduate.
He was born in 1976 in Taishan, Guangdong, and moved to Canada with his family at the age of two. In Toronto, his father worked as a dishwasher and his mother sewed clothes, and the family lived very frugally.
Growing up, Jiang was often alienated at school due to his humble clothing. Back home, his father frequently took his frustrations from facing discrimination out on him.
Such days deeply troubled Jiang Xueqin until the ninth grade when he was inspired by a substitute teacher and saw a different possibility for life: attending prestigious schools to escape his current situation.
In the next four years, Jiang worked tirelessly—taking the toughest courses at school, reading ‘The New Yorker’ and ‘The Atlantic’ on the subway, and doing SAT practice tests during breaks, sleeping only four hours a day.
In 1995, he fulfilled his wish by entering the Ivy League Yale University, majoring in English Literature.
However, he soon realized that escaping his original life only led him into a larger arena. ‘I was reading the most profound books, facing the most demanding professors, but everyone at Yale was excellent. I was just one among many.’
In 1999, upon graduation, Jiang found himself at a loss. The thought that ‘Yale graduates must succeed immediately’ haunted him. He tried various jobs, wrote for well-known media, and even worked for the UN in Afghanistan, but none of these experiences led him to a sense of accomplishment.
‘I felt lost, angry, and confused about this world. I jumped from one job to another, never stable, and fell into a serious depression by the time I was nearing 30,’ Jiang recalled.
During those darkest days, an unexpected opportunity brought him back to China.
Years earlier, Jiang had taught at Peking University Affiliated High School for six months as a Yale graduate. During that time, he formed a relationship with the then-deputy principal Wang Zheng.
In 2008, Wang Zheng, who had become the principal of Shenzhen Middle School, planned to set up an international education system and invited Jiang to lead a ‘study abroad unit’ there. Jiang personally interviewed every student and brought in nine Ivy League graduates as foreign teachers.
To students, Jiang was different from other teachers. His frequent refrain was ‘I graduated from Yale,’ and he loved to share his success story while boasting that he once won a fortune in Las Vegas through his math skills during a period of financial struggle.
His teaching philosophy was also quite controversial.
He firmly believed that English proficiency must be improved through reading, not by memorizing vocabulary or doing practice tests. When he discovered students memorizing vocabulary books, he would get angry. He also thought that for students in the ‘study abroad unit,’ ‘Chinese classes are meaningless; there’s no need to take them,’ which led to clashes with Chinese language teachers.
He insisted on establishing an English library available only to ‘study abroad unit’ students. These students also had a separate dining hall they could run a café in, and they could replace military training with outdoor hiking.
This sparked dissatisfaction among other parents and students, leading to complaints that Jiang was ‘creating special privileges.’
Amidst escalating tensions, in 2009, the admission cutoff score at Shenzhen Middle School fell to third in the city for the first time.
In the following year, the ‘study abroad unit’ model was discontinued, and Wang Zheng returned to Peking University Affiliated High School as principal. Jiang followed him, replicating the ‘study abroad unit’ model there. After two years of teaching, he left once more.
“Everyone can participate”
After leaving Peking University Affiliated High School, Jiang returned to Canada. He began to reflect seriously on why his career had encountered failure again.
‘90% of it was my problem,’ he said. ‘At that time, I was 32 years old, young and idealistic, but lacking experience. I was too extreme, too anxious, and had no respect for those kids, nor did I communicate or explain to them. I was eager to produce results to keep the system running. This is what I regret the most.’
After that, he experimented with numerous activities he had never participated in before during his free time: singing, playing piano, playing bass guitar; attending driving school, cooking classes, and drama school; trying parkour, rock climbing, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, yoga, and meditation; and even dabbling in woodworking and photography. ‘I slowly realized that society is incredibly diverse and exciting. My previous views were very narrow and radical.’
Later, he and friends analyzed his mindset: ‘Graduates from prestigious schools care too much about external evaluations. If they can’t gain recognition or success in a short time, they tend to give up. But some people do things out of intrinsic motivation and passion; they can continue to persist, diving deep into a single path.’
In 2022, Jiang Xueqin returned to China and began teaching Western philosophy at an international high school in Chaoyang, Beijing, introducing students to the thoughts and works of Plato, Socrates, Nietzsche, Kant, and Hegel.
It was during this period that he began updating his YouTube channel. Initially, he simply uploaded videos recorded during his lectures to document and share. Unexpectedly, these videos, originally just teaching records, went viral.
A fan from Munich commented that at the age of 65, Jiang’s videos made him ‘come read high school in China.’ Some praised his calm demeanor, stating he ‘predicted one of the most significant events in the world while remaining composed.’ Additionally, many fans appreciated his enthusiasm, saying, ‘You don’t need to rely on fancy video editing; all you need is a blackboard and passion.’
To date, Jiang Xueqin’s course videos remain free to subscribe to. He states, ‘To allow for free discussion of topics, the content is not commercialized.’ Over time, a fan even set up an account to share highlight versions of his videos, which Jiang warmly supports.
After the Spring Festival, Jiang began the new semester, which will last until the end of May. He promised students and fans that during this period, he would upload videos for two new courses: ‘Great Theories’ and ‘Great Books.’
His life has become bustling again.
In 2022, after returning home, a reporter interviewed Jiang Xueqin and asked about his experience at Shenzhen Middle School.
He replied, ‘If I were to do it again, I would open resources to all students. Elite education tends to select ‘smart’ kids, but I believe that as long as there is heart and love, every child’s life can be changed—they are all individuals with souls.’