China. Foreign Minister Qin Gang – resigned one month after mysterious disappearance

Chinese state media reported on Tuesday that Qin Gang had resigned as China’s foreign minister and was replaced by his predecessor, Wang Yi. Information on the reasons for the resignation has not yet been given.

57-year-old Qin Gang he has held his office since December 2022, which makes him one of the shortest holders of this office in recent years. He was last seen in public a month ago, on June 25, during a meeting with Vietnamese officials, Sri Lanka and Russia. Earlier, he also met with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

Later, however, for unexplained reasons, the Qin Gang sank underground. He did not participate in the subsequent scheduled meetings, e.g. with the head of EU diplomacy, Josep Borrell, or at the meeting of foreign ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Indonesia. Beijing laconically explained at the time that the minister could not take part in the event due to unspecified “health reasons”, but this information did not appear officially anywhere.

For this and subsequent meetings, instead of Qin Gang, Wang Yi – the former foreign minister and the actual head of Chinese diplomacy – flew. In China, the head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is considered only as the executor of foreign policy, the directions of which are determined not by the government, but by the communist party, and especially by the director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the party’s Central Committee. And that director was Wang Yi.

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At the same time, the lack of an explanation for the long absence of the Chinese foreign minister has fueled the recent weeks an avalanche of speculation and deepened doubts about the transparency of high-level decision-making in China. Many analysts pointed out that such a long absence of the head of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs could mean his resignation or even detention as part of Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign. There were also rumors about the alleged reasons for Qin Gang’s problems, including his possible affair with a government television journalist.

However, these reports remained unconfirmed, and in the realities of Chinese politics, the true reasons for the politician’s resignation may never come to light. “This is the problem of totalitarian regimes. They are inherently unstable because everything is decided personally by the supreme leader,” Deng Youwen, a former editor of a Chinese Communist Party newspaper who now lives in the US, told CNN.

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Qin Gang is a career diplomat and trusted associate of Chinese leader Xi Jinping. At the time of his swearing-in, he was one of the youngest foreign ministers in the history of the country, he was described as the “rising star” of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Previously, he was He was the Chinese ambassador to the US, he also worked at the Chinese embassy in the UK, and in 2014-2018 he was the director of diplomatic protocol in Xi Jinping’s administration.

This is not the first time a high-ranking Chinese official has suddenly gone underground. It happened that a few months after the disappearance of an important official, the disciplinary body of the ruling Chinese Communist Party revealed that he had been detained as part of an investigation. “Such sudden disappearances have become a frequent feature of Xi’s anti-corruption campaign,” notes CNN.

Deng Youwen also pointed to Qin Gang’s close ties with the Chinese leader. “Qin Gang was personally nominated by Xi Jinping. Any problems related to him will also affect Xi. It will mean that he chose the wrong person for such an important position,” he assessed in an interview with CNN.

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