Global Courant
HONG KONG – Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang has been relieved of his duties, state media reported on Tuesday.
According to Xinhua, China’s state news agency, he has been replaced by Wang Yi, China’s top diplomat and Qin’s predecessor.
The decision was made at a special session of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, China’s highest legislative body. No reason was given for the removal, as China ramps up diplomatic efforts around the world, including with the United States.
Ties between the world’s two largest economies are at their lowest point in decades amid disputes over trade, human rights, Russia’s war in Ukraine and the status of Taiwan, a self-governing island that Beijing claims as its territory.
Considered a fast-rising protege of President Xi Jinping, 57-year-old Qin served as China’s ambassador to the United States from July 2021 until he was promoted to foreign minister in December. Qin was an early adopter of the combative rhetoric that later became known as China’s “wolf warrior diplomacy.”
Qin’s seven-month tenure is the shortest of any foreign minister since the Chinese Communist Party came to power in 1949.
Qin was last seen in public in Beijing on June 25 after meeting officials from Sri Lanka, Russia and Vietnam. Questions about his whereabouts began to mount this month when he did not attend the annual meeting of foreign ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Indonesia.
China’s foreign ministry had said Qin would miss the event due to an unspecified health issue. It has since avoided answering repeated questions about its status, saying only that Chinese diplomacy is proceeding normally.
China’s political system is notoriously opaque and the government rarely comment on personal matters involving senior officials, but Qin’s absence and lack of explanation was highly unusual.
While there was no official comment on Qin, rumors and speculation about the reason for his absence were allowed to circulate freely on China’s heavily censored social media, suggesting he was likely to be removed.
Before going missing, Qin took an active part in diplomatic events. After his meeting in Beijing with Secretary of State Antony Blinken on June 18, he was absent from visits by other top US officials, including Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and US climate envoy John Kerry.
It was Wang, 69, who met Blinken at the ASEAN event in Indonesia this month. He also met veteran US diplomat Henry Kissinger when he made a surprise visit to Beijing last week.
Other diplomatic engagements that may have been disrupted include a trip to China by European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell scheduled for this month before being abruptly canceled the week before.
“Qin’s disappearance has curtailed China’s diplomatic activities over the past month, but will have little impact on the country’s foreign policy or pose significant reputational risks to Xi,” the Eurasia Group, a New York-based consulting firm, said in a note ahead of Qin’s removal.
Zhenzhen Liu contributed.
