After a month of news blackout over his whereabouts, the former foreign minister is officially sacked, replaced by Xi Jinping’s top foreign policy advisor. The loss of a “wolf warrior” is, however, a blow for the president at a time of political uncertainties in Beijing.
Beijing (AsiaNews/Agencies) – A month after his last official appearance, Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang has been officially removed from office, CCTV announced.
The National People’s Congress Standing Committee made the decision following a meeting of the Politburo, the top decision-making body of the Communist Party of China (CPC), yesterday, the state broadcaster reported.
The new foreign minister is Wang Yi, director of the General Office of the CPC's Central Committee Foreign Affairs Commission. In February 2020 he met with Archbishop Paul Gallagher, Secretary for Relations with States of the Holy See, in Munich, on the sidelines of a security conference.
As President Xi Jinping's top foreign advisor, Wang already outranked Qin, and had already de facto replaced him in diplomatic affairs following the latter’s sudden "disappearance".
The 57-year-old former ambassador to Washington was last seen in public on 25 June at a meeting with the ambassadors of Vietnam and Sri Lanka. Initially, his unexpected absence was put down to health. Eventually, this explanation disappeared from official statements, and Foreign Ministry officials stopped answering questions about him.
For Chinese President Xi Jinping, Qin’s fall from grace is a personal setback. The diplomat was seen as a leading advocate of China’s “wolf warrior” diplomacy, an approach that did not tolerate any international criticism of Beijing’s foreign policy.
Qin was also considered a strong Xi loyalist and had benefitted from the president’s support after the latter secured a third term of office as CPC party boss at last October’s 20th party congress.
As always, official sources in Beijing are silent as to the reasons for Qin’s removal after only six months in office. According to the rumour mill following his disappearance, he had allegedly been in an inappropriate relationship with a Hong Kong female journalist in the United States.
Whatever the case, problems in China’s foreign affairs apparatus could not come at a more delicate time for President Xi amid a difficult international context and less-than-stellar performance of the Chinese economy.