Another Chinese minister, in this case Defense, has disappeared from the radar. The US ambassador in Tokyo and the London newspaper Financial Times have raised the alarm, almost in unison: Li Shangfu has not been seen in more than two weeks. An absence that, according to these sources, would herald an imminent replacement.
The mystery has not been clarified by Beijing, fueling speculation. In the spring, Foreign Minister Qin Gang also disappeared from the scene for an unusually long time for his position. Finally, the return of his predecessor, Wang Yi, as head of Foreign Affairs, without any official explanation, gave rise to rumors in circulation about Qin’s extramarital relationship with a television presenter.
In the case of Li Shangfu, because of his position, in which exorbitant amounts of money are moved, often after tortuous negotiations, the most plausible explanation could be a matter of money. President Xi Jinping, since he took the reins of China a decade ago, promised a crusade against corruption that would calm the spirits of the population unequally benefited during the time of Hu Jintao, years in which businessmen were encouraged to join the Chinese Communist Party.
The last public event in which Li, sanctioned by Washington since 2018 for the purchase of weapons from Russia, was seen at a China-Africa security forum held on August 29, shortly after he traveled to Moscow and Minsk. to meet with senior Russian and Belarusian officials. Weapons sales to many African regimes are accompanied by explicit requests for commissions, as Washington, London or Paris also know. So hints of corruption may not be far-fetched.
The American politician awarded with the embassy in Tokyo is none other than Rahm Emanuel, former mayor of Chicago and very close to Barak Obama. According to Emanuel, Li had not attended a scheduled meeting with the head of the Singapore Navy.
The Financial Times, for its part, says it is based on undisclosed American sources to presume that Li would be under house arrest – for the duration of an investigation whose purpose is unknown – which would have forced his recent absence in Vietnam.
The truth is that Li still appears on the Ministry of Defense website and there are recent mentions of his name on the Asian country’s social networks. While in the case of Qin Gang, the Foreign Ministry website deleted a large part of the mentions of Qin a month after his disappearance, when his dismissal had already been confirmed at the end of July.
Li’s absence comes about a month after the dismissal of two generals from the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force, with no explanation provided. General Li Shangfu, born in Chengdu 65 years ago, previously held the highest positions in Beijing’s ballistic and aerospace program, having trained as an engineer in this branch.
