Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang sacked

After a month of unexplained absence, Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang was relieved of his duties on Tuesday, a surprise decision for which officials gave no justification.

He has been replaced in this position by his predecessor Wang Yi, who is currently the de facto boss of Chinese diplomacy as the highest official for diplomatic relations within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Qin Gang, 57, considered close to President Xi Jinping, had been the head of the foreign ministry since late December.

According to reports from his ministry, his last public appearance dates back to June 25, when he notably met with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Roudenko in Beijing.

Qin Gang thus missed several diplomatic meetings, including an important meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Indonesia in early July.

The ministry headed by Qin Gang was the first to mention “health reasons”, before going almost silent about them.

Still, on Tuesday, the government raised some questions.

“Qin Gang has been relieved of his duties as foreign minister”, New China solemnly reported. The official news agency limited itself to citing a decision of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, which Xi Jinping then supported.

– Qin retained the high position –

This lack of official explanation is “a bad sign”, says Judge Victor Shih, an expert in China politics at UC San Diego, who says Wang Yi’s choice to replace him is “extraordinary because there are many other viable candidates”.

Currently in South Africa to attend a meeting of the BRICS grouping, Mr. Wang previously held these ministerial responsibilities from 2013 to 2022.

He was already carrying out some of the Qin Gang’s duties in recent weeks.

Mr. Qin’s absence has generated many rumors on social networks, including about an adulterous relationship with a Hong Kong television channel presenter when he was ambassador to the United States (2021-2022).

Authorities have so far dodged many questions about the whereabouts of the Qin gang.

Questions were also raised on Tuesday afternoon as to who the Chinese foreign minister was, with spokesman Mao Ning confirming at a press conference to have “already answered” the question without naming names.

However, some analysts caution against jumping to any conclusions.

Political scientist Neil Thomas, a China expert at the Asia Society think tank, noted that Qin Gang “retains his high position as State Counsellor”. “So not sure it’s purgatory,” he wrote on Twitter, changing his name to “X”.

– A “provisional arrangement”? ,

Retaining the post of State Councilor suggests that it is not a “question” of approval, but a “health problem”, suspects Manoj Kewalramani, a researcher at the Takshashila Institution, an India-based think tank.

This would have the advantage of “sparing the image of Xi Jinping, who slightly forced protocol to promote the Qin Gang”, analyst Bill Bishop wrote in his China-specialized newsletter, Cynicism, ahead of Tuesday’s announcement.

“The rapid rise of the Qin Gang may have caused some resentment among other senior Chinese foreign ministry officials,” lawyer Moritz Rudolf, a China specialist at Yale Law School in the United States, told AFP.

The foreign minister’s sudden departure shows that “the CCP’s operations may not be as orderly and stable as one might imagine”, he said.

Qin Gang’s absence had created a certain vacuum at the diplomatic level.

A visit to Beijing by EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell was abruptly canceled in July.

And the Bloomberg news agency claimed on Friday that the visit of British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly had been postponed because of Qin Gang’s absence.

Meanwhile, his “successor” Wang Yi “is a veteran of Chinese diplomacy and the whole country trusts him,” tweeted Hu Xijin, a prominent commentator at state media Global Times.

Although, for analyst Neil Thomas, Mr Wang now has two jobs, the current situation “may be a temporary arrangement”.