Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang has not been seen in public for more than three weeks and has already missed key diplomatic engagements, raising questions about his whereabouts.
Qin, one of the faces of the new generation of Chinese diplomats known as “warrior wolves”, was last seen in public on June 25, when he met officials from Sri Lanka, Russia and Vietnam in the Chinese capital.
Since then, Qin Gang, who previously served as ambassador to Washington, has not been mentioned by Chinese diplomacy or the official press.
Last week, Beijing said Qin’s absence from the Southeast Asia ministers’ meeting in Jakarta was due to health reasons. This justification is absent from the official transcript of the regular press conference with the spokesman for Chinese diplomacy, later published on the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The agency frequently excludes content it considers confidential from daily conference transcripts.
The prolonged absence contrasts with the sudden rise last December, when his firm and aggressive tone granted him the post of minister, beginning months of frenetic activity, following the reopening of China after almost three years of ‘zero’ politics.
Qin replaced Wang Yi – who is now director of the Chinese Communist Party’s Office of the Foreign Relations Commission – with an international agenda marked by the war in Ukraine or the growing rivalry between Beijing and Washington.
His last high-profile public appearance came last June, when he met with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Beijing at a time when both sides were trying to regain communication, with a view to preventing competition would lead to a conflict. .open
Qin was due to meet with European Union diplomat Josep Borrell this month in Beijing, but he postponed the meeting without giving an explanation.
On Monday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said she had “no information” about when Qin might return to office. “China’s diplomatic activities continue as normal,” she said.
In China, the disappearance of high officials, celebrities and businessmen is common. Often the authorities announce later that the missing person is being investigated or punished.
Qin also did not participate in the meetings held in Beijing with the US Treasury Secretary, Janet Yellen, nor did he receive the White House special envoy for climate change, John Kerry, in the Chinese capital.
A search for Qin Gang’s name on the social network Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter, returns results from more than a month ago.
Journalist and analyst Phil Cunningham said five sentences about Qin were removed without notice from an opinion piece he wrote on China-US relations for the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post (SCMP).
Phil commented in the article that it was an unfortunate time for a former ambassador to Washington to disappear from the political scene, questioning whether it was due to illness or “political disadvantage.”
Qin is considered a rising star in the Chinese Communist Party apparatus. He is considered close to Chinese President Xi Jinping, with whom he worked as chief of protocol before serving as vice foreign minister from 2018 to 2021.
Source: TSF
