The Chinese Foreign Minister, Qin Gang, who has been out of the public scene for a month, was dismissed yesterday and replaced by his predecessor in office, Wang Yi. Qin has not been seen in public since June 25, when he met in the Chinese capital with officials from Sri Lanka, Russia and Vietnam, and has since absented himself from several diplomatic events, making has produced all kinds of speculation about his whereabouts and situation.
The Standing Committee of the National People’s Assembly – a legislative body – approved yesterday in an unusual meeting the dismissal of Qin and the return of Wang Yi as chancellor, according to the state news agency Xinhua. Chinese President Xi Jinping signed the order to make the decision effective.
Qin’s ouster comes after his meteoric rise in December, when his firm and aggressive tone was rewarded with Foreign Affairs, kicking off months of frenetic activity as the country opened up after the end of covid policy zero Qin had replaced Wang with an international agenda marked by the war in Ukraine and rivalry with Washington.
The last major public appearance took place in June, when he met in Beijing with the Secretary of State of the United States, Antony Blinken, as the two powers tried to regain communication to avoid conflicts. Qin had planned to attend the last Asean summit, held in Indonesia, which, according to Beijing, he missed “for health reasons”. He also did not participate in the meetings held in Beijing by the US Secretary of the Treasury, Janet Yellen, and the special envoy of the White House for Climate Change, John Kerry, who was received by Wang.
At the age of 69, Wang returns to the position he held from 2013 until last December 31 after replacing Qin in some of the meetings that took place this past month. Wang is a member of the Politburo (the Communist Party’s 24-member top brass) and was promoted in October to head of the Office of the Party’s Foreign Affairs Commission, making him the diplomat of China’s top rank.
Before becoming a minister, Qin, 57, was Foreign Affairs Spokesman, Director of Protocol for the portfolio and then Deputy Minister, until he was appointed China’s ambassador to the United States in 2021. Just 17 months later he became Minister of Foreign Affairs and Councilor of State.
After disappearing from the public scene, the official press stopped mentioning his name and disappeared from social networks and all diplomatic events, which led to all kinds of speculation about his whereabouts and situation. And the fact is that the absences of officials, businessmen and other figures of public interest in China always go hand in hand with all kinds of conjecture, rumors and double readings.
On social networks such as Twitter – censored in China –, all kinds of explanations have been speculated about his fall from grace: from an alleged extramarital affair with a TV presenter to a political purge months later of internal struggles within the formation. In recent weeks, given the insistence of the press, Foreign Office spokesmen limited themselves to commenting that they had “no information to provide” about Qin.