Global Courant
BEIJING — China ousted Mr Qin Gang as foreign minister on Tuesday after serving just half a year and exactly one month after he disappeared from public view, sparking rampant speculation about his whereabouts.
The country’s top legislature voted in an emergency meeting on Tuesday to remove Mr Qin, 57. In a surprise move, it reappointed former foreign minister Wang Yi, 69, to the position he held for 10 years until the end of 2022.
No reasons were given for Mr. Qin’s removal.
Wang will continue to head the Central Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the Communist Party of China (CPC), making him the country’s top diplomat.
The meeting, confirmed just a day earlier, also saw the central bank’s stalwart Yi Gang give way to his deputy Pan Gongsheng as governor of the People’s Bank of China.
Mr. Qin was conspicuously absent from official duties since June 25 missing a series of important diplomatic events and meetings at home and abroad.
Despite repeated questions from journalists during the daily briefings, the Foreign Ministry has kept quiet about Mr. Qin’s circumstances, saying only that he had a health condition that prevented him from attending a recent ASEAN summit.
The secrecy surrounding Mr. Qin’s disappearance fueled persistent rumors of an affair, an illegitimate child, and espionage. As speculation swirled beyond China’s borders, news of his absence and rumors were scrapped from China’s social media and even from the State Department’s website, where transcripts of the daily briefings are published.
Experts also speculated about who would take over the foreign ministry if Qin was ousted. Mr. Liu Jianchao, 59, head of the CPC’s international liaison department, and Deputy Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu, 59, were named as possible candidates.
Mr Qin became one of China’s youngest deputy foreign ministers at the age of 52, following rapid growth in the ministry – and is now also the shortest-serving foreign minister in recent times.
As Chief of Protocol from 2015 to 2018, he was known for regularly meeting with President Xi Jinping whenever the Chinese leader received foreign dignitaries, earning Mr Xi’s trust as a result.
In 2021, Mr. Qin was sent as ambassador to Washington at the height of fraught relations between the two countries, but was recalled to Beijing in 2022 and promoted to Minister of Foreign Affairs and Privy Councillor, a rank just below Deputy Prime Ministers.
