After a month of rumors and speculation, one of the most intriguing stories in Chinese politics came to a resolution this week — well, kind of.
Qin Gang, China’s foreign minister and a proponent of President Xi Jinping’s aggressive foreign policy, was ousted under mysterious circumstances after weeks of speculation regarding his whereabouts.
Qin, a longtime ally of Xi, had not been seen in public for nearly a month; one of his last high-profile meetings was with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Beijing in June. Though the foreign ministry earlier implied he was experiencing health issues, neither Xi nor the Chinese Communist Party had given a definitive reason for his absence, and still haven’t explained his departure. Naturally, rumors have spiked about the reason for Qin’s absence from the world stage and his sudden dismissal at a sensitive time for US-China relations.
Wang Yi, China’s previous foreign minister and the head of the CCP’s Central Foreign Affairs Commission, reassumed his former post on Tuesday, the Wall Street Journal reported. That’s likely an interim solution as Xi and the Politburo, one of the highest echelons of power within the party, decide who will fill the post on a permanent basis.
The mystery surrounding Qin’s disappearance and dismissal is likely to persist, unless — and perhaps even if — the Chinese government gives a full accounting of what happened to him and why. At this early date, that’s likely the most important information we can draw from such a monumental and strange series of events — that the inner workings of China’s government are only likely to become more obscure and increasingly consolidated the longer Xi is in power.
Wait, so where’d this guy go?
Qin was appointed to the foreign minister post just seven months ago, at the end of December, after previously serving as China’s ambassador to the US. At 57, he was one of the younger high-level officials in Xi’s government…
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