By: Ishita Goel
August 2 2023
No, Klaus Schwab didn't admit he is planning to implement China-style lockdowns
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Fact-Check
The Verdict False
There is no evidence that Klaus Schwab is planning for a lockdown. He has made no such admission.
Claim ID 2d70506b
Context
A viral Facebook post dated July 24 claims that World Economic Forum (WEF) chairman Klaus Schwab "ADMITTED He Is Planning To Implement China-Style Forced Covid Lockdowns ALL OVER THE WORLD During The "Next Pandemic" Which He "EXPECTS" To Happen Soon." The post carries a large mugshot of Schwab along with the text in large letters. Archive of the post can be found here.
However, there is no evidence that Schwab has made any such statement.
In fact
The claim likely originated from an X (formerly known as Twitter) post published on July 23, 2023. from an account that regularly posts misinformation. The X post, like the Facebook post in question, did not provide any evidence to support the claim. We were also unable to find any credible reports or statements that proved that Schwab had made any such comment.
Further, neither the WEF, a non-governmental lobbying organization, nor Schwab has the authority to implement a global lockdown.
On July 24, the X account posted a video link from YouTube pushing the same claim without evidence. The video was captioned, "Klaus Schwab Reveals His Evil Plan To Create The Next Pandemic ⚠️ The Elites Don't Want You To See This."
The video starts with Schwab speaking at a conference. He says, "And the last factor I want to mention is resilience. The capability to bounce back because there will be certainly what we call the black swans, the unpleasant surprises, which will come in our way." The video then shows the dictionary definition of the term ‘black swan’: "an unpredictable or unforeseen event, typically one with extreme consequences." The narrator then alleges that Schwab is making money in dubious ways to gain capital power back, and "at the same time as he's now pushing these crazy ideologies, he's simultaneously trying to implement China-style policies all over the world for these black swan events that he knows are coming. In part because he's playing a role in them."
Further, the video showed another post that said that Schwab claimed that 'Middle classes are holding back the 4th Industrial Revolution’, a claim previously debunked by Logically Facts. The video later shows reports of China's COVID-19 lockdown rules and alleges that Schwab is trying to implement similar, including extreme government overreaches and an authoritarian governing style.
Schwab's words are from the World Government Summit 2023 held in Dubai with the theme "Shaping Future Government." Schwab talked about the state of the world during his keynote speech and mentioned black swans, adding that resilience in technology will help people during unseen events. However, in the speech, Schwab never mentioned anything about China or implementing China-style lockdowns.
Logically Facts has contacted WEF for clarification. This story will be updated if and when we receive a response.
The verdict
Portions Of Klaus Schwab's keynote speech at the World Government Summit 2023 have been misinterpreted to claim that the WEF chairman has admitted that he wants to implement China-style forced lockdowns. Therefore, we have marked this claim as false.