Missing Chinese foreign minister Qin Gang removed from his post

Open this photo in gallery:

Qin Gang, who rose rapidly through the ranks of Chinese politics to become the country’s youngest foreign minister in 70 years, has been removed from his post, Beijing said Tuesday.

The 57-year-old was appointed to the job last December, after serving almost two years as China’s ambassador to the United States. He will be replaced as foreign minister by his predecessor, Wang Yi, according to state media.

It is unclear if Mr. Qin retains his position as a state councillor, a high-ranking role in China’s cabinet that he was given in March.

Mr. Qin had not been seen in public since June 25, sparking widespread speculation about his whereabouts and potential downfall and disrupting Chinese diplomacy at a time when Beijing is trying to repair relations with the West.

No explanation was given for his removal Tuesday. Earlier this month, the Foreign Affairs Ministry cited unspecified “health reasons” for his absence from official events, assuring reporters that “China’s diplomatic activities are under way as usual.”

Chinese officials have disappeared from public view in the past, including President Xi Jinping himself, who vanished for two weeks in 2012 just before taking the top job, an incident that has still never been explained. But Mr. Qin’s extended absence was highly unusual, said Nis Grünberg, lead analyst at the Berlin-based Mercator Institute for China Studies.

“I don’t recall any other time of four weeks of total silence,” he said.

Despite the Foreign Affairs Ministry’s insistence that it was business as usual, Mr. Qin’s disappearance unnerved foreign diplomats, emphasizing once again what a black box elite Chinese politics has become under Mr. Xi, who has carried out a ruthless anti-corruption campaign, purging the ruling Communist Party of potential rivals and installing allies in key positions throughout government and the military.

“In an age when other countries’ leaders drop indiscretions on social media or in interviews, China’s ruling classes heed codes of silence that would be familiar to Communist Party cadres of the 1950s,” David Rennie, The Economist’s Chaguan columnist, wrote this week.

Mr. Grünberg said the incident could be damaging for China’s image overseas, even in countries that are friendly with Beijing.

“It’s very difficult to deal with a regime where information is very, very scarcely shared,” he said.

Mr. Wang’s reappointment – technically a demotion to a role he held for almost a decade before becoming head of China’s Central Foreign Affairs Commission – was clearly meant as “damage control,” Mr. Grünberg said. “They’re not pulling up someone from below. They need someone who can hit the ground running.”

Mr. Qin, a career diplomat, enjoyed a meteoric rise through Chinese politics, becoming vice-foreign minister in 2018, before being sent to Washington in 2021 to replace Cui Tiankai, China’s longest-serving envoy to the United States.

In the U.S., Mr. Qin struggled to get an audience with the Biden administration amid frosty relations with Beijing and was seen by some as a jingoistic practitioner of “wolf warrior diplomacy” – a new, more assertive and even aggressive way of dealing with other countries. In private, however, he had a reputation as a suave and confident operator, with excellent English polished by previous postings in Britain and the U.S.

Mr. Grünberg said he did not discount a potential health issue as the cause of Mr. Qin’s removal, given the apparent lack of preparedness demonstrated in Beijing – the long silence and the choice of Mr. Wang rather than a younger figure as a replacement. He was skeptical of rumours alleging some personal indiscretion being the cause of Mr. Qin’s downfall, pointing out that senior officials are thoroughly vetted.

If Mr. Qin is revealed to have been removed for political reasons, however, it could be deeply embarrassing for Mr. Xi.

Bo Zhiyue, an expert on Chinese elite politics, wrote last week that “any whiff of impropriety would reflect badly on Xi, too,” given the President’s “strong personal endorsement” of Mr. Qin.

While the position of foreign minister is a relatively junior one in China’s system, in the short term Mr. Qin’s absence may disrupt efforts to repair ties with Washington.

Both sides have floated a potential meeting between Mr. Xi and U.S. President Joe Biden, which could take place at a meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in the U.S. in November. Mr. Qin himself led meetings with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken during the latter’s visit to Beijing last month.