In this Chinese name, the family name is Jiang.
Jiang Xueqin
江学勤
Born 1975 (age 50–51)
Guangdong, China[1]
Citizenship Canada[2]
Education Yale University (BA)
Occupations Educator, YouTuber, blogger
Substack information
Newsletter
YouTube information
Channel
Subscribers 2.3 million
Views 77 million
Last updated: April 13, 2026

Jiang Xueqin (Chinese: 江学勤; pinyin: Jiāng Xuéqín;[ph 1] born 1976),[ph 2] also known as "Professor Jiang", is a Chinese-Canadian educator and commentator. In the 2000s, he was involved in education reforms in China.[3][4] Since 2022, he has worked as a philosophy teacher at Moonshot Academy high school in Beijing.[5] He gained international attention with his viral YouTube channel Predictive History, on which he is best known for commentating on and analysing geopolitics using game theory, historical patterns and eschatology.

Early life and education

Jiang Xueqin was born in Guangdong. His father was a high school teacher in China. At 6, Jiang's family emigrated to Canada, where they settled in Toronto. His father became a short-order cook, and his mother worked as a seamstress. Jiang says he had a poor childhood including having to wear hand-me-down clothes.[6][7]

Jiang graduated from Yale University with a Bachelor of Arts in English literature in 1999.[7][5][8][9] As an undergraduate at Yale College, he worked as a teacher at the Affiliated High School of Peking University in Beijing in 1998.[4]

Jiang holds Canadian citizenship.[4][1]

Career

His belief in guanxi or social networking for career success came to be while studying at Yale, which he says he lacked.[6]

After graduation, he fell into deep frustration when he failed to publish his own book or get articles published in magazines. "I felt lost, angry, and bewildered by the world. I jumped from one job to another, never settled down, and eventually fell into severe depression when I was almost 30," Jiang Xueqin recalled.

In 2000 Jiang, while suffering from depression, Jiang moved to Beijing where he worked small stints as a freelance journalist.[3][6] Jiang wrote for publications such as the American Christian Science Monitor and the Hong Kong-based Far Eastern Economic Review.[1]

In 2001, Jiang was contracted to conduct an undercover U.S.-funded PBS documentary about the labor movement in China.[10][8] While filming one such protest in Daqing, Jiang was arrested and detained for two days before he was deported from China on 5 June 2002. A friend claimed that he was accused of "making illegal video recordings" and suspected of spying. No charges were filed.[1]

In 2003, Jiang was allowed by Chinese officials to return to China, where he decided to abandon freelance journalism and pursue educational reform instead at "high-profile schools".[8][7]

In 2008, Jiang initiated educational reforms at Shenzhen Middle School in a push for a more liberal system of learning with focus on creativity.[3][4] He has described himself as being the first person in China to initiate such reforms.[11]

Jiang has since held senior administrative and teaching positions at several prominent Chinese secondary schools, including:

  • Deputy Principal, Shenzhen Middle School (2008–2010)[3]
  • Program Director, Peking University High School International Division (2010–2012)
  • Tsinghua University's Affiliate High School (2014)[4]
  • History and Philosophy Teacher, Moonshot Academy Beijing (2022–present).[ph 3]

He was a researcher with the Global Education Innovation Initiative at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (RSA), and has served on the selection committee for the Global Teacher Prize.[12]

His writing has appeared in The New York Times (Chinese edition), CNN, China Youth Daily, The Wall Street Journal, and The Chronicle of Higher Education.[13]

YouTube channel

In 2024, Jiang created the YouTube channel Predictive History with the initial intention of recording his classes for his students to review. He describes his channel as employing structural historical analysis, game theory, and concepts inspired by Isaac Asimov's fictional psychohistory to interpret and predict important geopolitical developments.[ph 4][14] Jiang also has a course, Western Philosophy, which he has recorded and uploaded to his YouTube channel.[14]

Jiang's Geo-Strategy episode, "The Iran Trap" (2024), has attracted international attention, predicting the re-election of Donald Trump in 2024 and escalating U.S. involvement in a conflict with Iran (cf. the 2025 and 2026 conflicts) and eventual U.S. loss in a prolonged conflict, the first two of which have come true as of 2026.[14][15] According to India Today, other analysts had made similar predictions but "Jiang packaged them early and memorably."[6]

After his channel went viral amid the 2026 Iran war, he started appearing on podcasts and online news shows like Piers Morgan Uncensored and The Tucker Carlson Show.[7]

He styles himself as "Professor Jiang" in his videos; he has not taught at a university level.

Reception

While some media outlets described Jiang's lecture on Iran in 2024 as prophetic (earning him the moniker "Nostradamus of China"),[7] others criticized the predictions for relying on selective historical analogies, not showing his game theory work, and untestable assumptions.[14] India Today said that his geopolitical analysis glaringly do not feature Chinese foreign policy or internal problems of China even though he resides in the country.[6] In an interview with Mehdi Hasan on Zeteo he said that he uses VPN to get past the internet censorship in China to access YouTube and other blocked websites, adding "I do not talk to reporters in China because I'm conscious that whatever I say online could be used against me."[16] The South China Morning Post noted that he is mainly popular outside of China, though some of his English-language lectures have been translated and uploaded onto Chinese social media.[7]

The Free Press described Jiang as a conspiracy theorist who has promoted conspiracy theories through his YouTube channel about the Illuminati, Freemasons, Jesuits and Sabbateans controlling the Western world.[17] According to the South China Morning Post, which described some of his lectures as "veering into well-trodden conspiracy theories on shadowy secret societies", in "Pax Judaica", the concluding lecture about Greater Israel of his Secret History series, Jiang has presented a theory that after the US is forced from the Middle East, the Illuminati, an organization comprised of Freemasons, Jesuits and Sabbateans, would control the world from Jerusalem.[7] Yang Meng, assistant professor at Peking University, argued that Jiang has promoted conspiracy theories relating to Israel, such as claiming that Israel has practiced ritual child sacrifice in the Gaza war.[18]

Jiang's usage of the moniker "Professor", as a high school teacher, has also been described as misleading.[6] He has defended the usage saying that he did not initially name his channel as such and only started using the title after fans started calling him by that name.[16]

Publications

  • 创新中国教育 [Creative China]. 2014. ISBN 978-7-5117-2072-6.
  • Schools for the Soul. 2021.[19]
  • "China's media enables tyranny and corruption". CNN. 23 November 2017.

References

  1. ^ a b c d "Canadian journalist expelled for investigating workers' strikes". Reporters Without Borders. 11 June 2002.
  2. ^ "我花四年考入耶鲁，却用了十年才走出它带来的迷茫" [It took me four years to get into Yale, but ten years to emerge from the confusion it brought me]. Sohu (in Chinese). 21 July 2021. Retrieved 10 January 2026.
  3. ^ a b c d Wei, Xiaohan (11 June 2022). "Bitter Lessons From a Chinese Education Reformer". Sixth Tone. Archived from the original on 14 January 2026. Retrieved 14 January 2026.
  4. ^ a b c d e Johnson, Ian (8 April 2014). "Solving China's Schools: An Interview with Jiang Xueqin". The New York Review.
  5. ^ a b "Xueqin Jiang | 江学勤". MOONSHOT ACADEMY. Retrieved 7 March 2026.
  6. ^ a b c d e f Adhikary, Manish (23 March 2026). "Meet Professor Jiang: The Chinese Nostradamus who doesn't talk about China". India Today. Retrieved 23 March 2026.
  7. ^ a b c d e f g Chen, Meredith (29 March 2026). "Jiang Xueqin, the viral 'prophet' predicting the world's fate from a Beijing classroom". South China Morning Post. Retrieved 4 April 2026.
  8. ^ a b c Xueqin, Jiang (23 November 2017). "China's media enables tyranny and corruption". CNN. Retrieved 15 March 2026.
  9. ^ Chaturvedi, Amit (5 March 2026). ""China's Nostradamus" Made 3 Trump Predictions In 2024. 2 Already Came True". NDTV World.
  10. ^ "Canadian journalist deported from China". The Globe and Mail. 6 June 2002.
  11. ^ Predictive History (7 January 2026). Game Theory #2: Why Schools Suck. Retrieved 13 April 2026 – via YouTube.
  12. ^ "Jiang Xueqin". Big Think (Profile page). Retrieved 10 January 2026.
  13. ^ "Who Is Jiang Xueqin? Professor's viral video from 2024 predicted Trump's return and U.S. role in Israel-Iran war". The Financial Express. 23 June 2025. Retrieved 10 January 2026.
  14. ^ a b c d "The Professor Who Predicted Trump's Return and War With Iran". Newsweek. 24 June 2025. Retrieved 10 January 2026.
  15. ^ "Chinese History professor's viral prediction of Trump re-election, Iran war stuns netizen". WION. 2025. Retrieved 10 January 2026.
  16. ^ a b Hasan, Mehdi (4 April 2026). "Mehdi Goes Head-to-Head With 'Professor' Jiang, the Internet Sensation". Zeteo. Retrieved 4 April 2026.
  17. ^ Page, River. "Meet the Internet's New Iran Expert—Who Thinks the Illuminati Runs the World". The Free Press. Retrieved 9 March 2026.
  18. ^ Meng, Yang (6 February 2026). "Yang Meng: Moral shortcuts have fuelled the surge of antisemitism in Canada". National Post.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  19. ^ "Jiang Xueqin". Global Teacher Prize. 23 November 2022. Retrieved 18 January 2026.

Primary sources

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference moonname2 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ "Civilization BONUS: Meet Professor Jiang". YouTube. 12 June 2025. I turn fifty next year
  3. ^ "江学勤 Xueqin Jiang 英语老师，哲学老师" [Jiang Xueqin, English teacher, philosophy teacher]. Moonshot Academy (Profile page). 北京市朝阳区林萃路2号国家网球中心莲花球馆 [Lotus Hall, National Tennis Center, No. 2 Lincui Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing]
  4. ^ Predictive History. YouTube. Retrieved 10 January 2026.