Chinese Foreign Ministry scrubs missing minister from its records
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China’s Foreign Ministry has removed all mention of Qin Gang from its online records, purging the former foreign minister’s name and his meetings with world leaders.
It follows President Xi Jinping’s decision to sack Qin from his role on Tuesday night after rumours ranging from illness to an extramarital affair with a high-profile TV presenter, to a power struggle at the top of the Chinese Communist Party, dogged the rising former ambassador to the United States.
Until his demise, Qin Gang was one of the Chinese president’s proteges. Credit: AP
An emergency session of the standing committee on Tuesday voted on the “decision on official appointment and removal” but no reasons were given for Qin’s disappearance.
Qin, who has not been seen for a month, has not commented publicly on the dismissal.
But his six months as foreign minister has now disappeared from official records, including his meetings with Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong in March, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in May, and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in June.
Chinese government censors worked fast to remove all information, transcripts and photos of the relatively moderate former minister from the foreign ministry website by early Wednesday morning.
Penny Wong with her former Chinese counterpart, Qin Gang.
“It reflects how opaque the public personnel and public governance is in China,” said Alfred Wu, an expert in Chinese politics from the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. “It’s embarrassing for China.”
Wu said Beijing still did not want to announce the real reason for Qin’s dismissal.
“The situation is even worse because of one-man politics,” he said. “So, everything needs to wait for Xi Jinping’s decision.”
Until his demise, Qin was one of the Chinese president’s proteges. Xi had promoted him from foreign ministry spokesman to personal aide to US Ambassador and finally to foreign minister.
The 57-year-old’s rapid rise sidelined the foreign ministry, which had historically expected senior ministers to serve their time in more junior roles, but it was enabled by Xi who has wielded unprecedented power over all ministerial appointments.
Qin has yet to be removed from his second post as state councillor, a title applied to high-ranking officials in the Chinese government executive, equivalent to a cabinet.
Wen-Ti Sung, a Chinese political scientist at the Australian National University suggested it may be a signal that he is in professional trouble but “not politically dead yet”.
Sung said keeping Qin in the state councillor role could signal that Beijing still does not know the result of an active investigation into his activities while ensuring that there is someone capable of filling the foreign minister role to meet other world leaders.
“[For] foreigners, almost nobody knows what a ‘state councillor’ is. But almost every single human on earth understands what a foreign minister is,” said Sung.
“China not having one makes it look bad on a daily basis.”
Wang Yi, Qin’s predecessor has been re-appointed as foreign minister. The 69-year-old veteran served in the role for a decade before being promoted to director of the Office of the Central Foreign Affairs Commission, China’s top diplomatic position.
Wang Yi with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.Credit: AFP
The move means he will hold Beijing’s top two diplomatic posts, but he is well-known by foreign governments including Australia.
Wong, who met with Wang in Beijing in December, was contacted for comment.
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