{"id":1987671,"date":"2023-08-01T11:56:02","date_gmt":"2023-08-01T15:56:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/not-found-the-mysterious-case-of-chinas-disappeared-foreign-minister\/"},"modified":"2023-08-01T12:01:10","modified_gmt":"2023-08-01T16:01:10","slug":"not-found-the-mysterious-case-of-chinas-disappeared-foreign-minister","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/not-found-the-mysterious-case-of-chinas-disappeared-foreign-minister\/","title":{"rendered":"China&#8217;s Vanished Foreign Minister: The Enigmatic Mystery"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">14<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fnot-found-the-mysterious-case-of-chinas-disappeared-foreign-minister%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1987671&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div>\n<h2>The Mysterious Disappearance of China&#8217;s Former Foreign Minister<\/h2>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Hours after <span data-qa-component=\"highlight-text\">China&#8217;s<\/span> top legislature convened a special meeting last \u200bweek to remove <span data-qa-component=\"highlight-text\">foreign<\/span> minister Qin Gang, photos and mentions of the 57-year-old started disappearing from his former ministry&#8217;s website.<\/p>\n<p>While some of this information reappeared days\u2064 later, Qin does not feature on the website&#8217;s list of \u2064&#8221;former <span data-qa-component=\"highlight-text\">ministers<\/span>,&#8221; \u2064and for several more days a search for \u2062his name \u200chad been turning up: &#8220;Sorry, Qin Gang is not found.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In fact, he has not been seen in public for more than a \u2062month.<\/p>\n<p>The \u2063 <span data-qa-component=\"highlight-text\">foreign<\/span> ministry&#8217;s brief <span data-qa-component=\"highlight-text\">ex<\/span>planation weeks ago \u200bthat this was due to health reasons, a remark later <span data-qa-component=\"highlight-text\">ex<\/span>cised from official transcripts, has failed to stem a swirl of speculation not just about his fate but on how\u2062 the whole saga reflects on the\u2062 man that supported his \u2064meteoric rise, President Xi Jinping.<\/p>\n<p>China named veteran diplomat Wang Yi to replace Qin, but gave few further clues on the reason for the change.<\/p>\n<p><span data-qa-component=\"highlight-text\">Foreign<\/span> ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning on Thursday said Beijing will release\u200b information in a timely matter regarding Qin and opposes &#8220;malicious hype.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>She was responding to a reporter who asked\u200b about transparency around Qin&#8217;s removal, one of more than 25 questions mentioning Qin at press briefings in recent days that the ministry has ducked.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<h3>Speculation Swirls<\/h3>\n<p><span data-qa-component=\"highlight-text\">China&#8217;s \u200bforeign<\/span> \u200dministry and the State Council Information Office, which <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/exclusive-chinas-xi-tells-bill-gates-he-welcomes-u-s-ai-tech-in-china\/\" title=\"China's Xi welcomes US AI tech in exclusive meeting with Bill Gates.\">handles media queries<\/a> on behalf of the party and government, did not immediately respond to requests for comment on this story.<\/p>\n<p>Qin&#8217;s unusually long and un<span data-qa-component=\"highlight-text\">ex<\/span>plained absence, his abruptly \u200ccut-short tenure, as well as other strange happenings like the ministry&#8217;s website,\u200c mean speculation will continue to swirl.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The truth will eventually come out\u2014it usually does in China, although it\u2062 sometimes takes months or years\u2014but the way he was dismissed makes it unlikely that it was for health reasons,&#8221; said Ian Johnson, senior fellow for China studies at \u200dthe Council on <span data-qa-component=\"highlight-text\">Foreign<\/span> Relations.<\/p>\n<p>Beijing-based political analyst Wu Qiang said he could &#8220;almost certainly rule out health as the real reason.&#8221; If that was \u2062the case, the state could have assigned\u2062 a deputy to \u200dfill in for him rather than\u200b officially removing \u200dhim, Wu said.<\/p>\n<p>Qin lasted barely half a\u2063 year in the role after becoming one\u2062 of the country&#8217;s youngest <span data-qa-component=\"highlight-text\">foreign<\/span> <span data-qa-component=\"highlight-text\">ministers<\/span> in \u200bDecember 2022, a position with a\u200d five-year \u200ctenure.<\/p>\n<p>There are precedents for officials disappearing and being scrubbed \u200cfrom the collective memory in China.<\/p>\n<p>Industry <span data-qa-component=\"highlight-text\">minister<\/span> Xiao Yaqing vanished for nearly a month\u2062 last year before it was revealed he was being investigated for corruption.<\/p>\n<p>The <span data-qa-component=\"highlight-text\">foreign<\/span> ministry removed all online traces to its former chief protocol officer\u200b Zhang Kunsheng who was found guilty of corruption and using his position of power to obtain s<span data-qa-component=\"highlight-text\">ex<\/span> in 2016.<\/p>\n<p>Such erasures go back decades in China.<\/p>\n<p>A state-commissioned\u200c painting depicting the\u2062 historic moment when Mao Zedong stood on top of Tiananmen Gate to announce the founding of the people&#8217;s republic was altered three times between 1955 and 1972 to erase officials that subsequently fell foul of Mao.<\/p>\n<h3>&#8216;One-Man \u200dPolitics&#8217;<\/h3>\n<p>But other observers say, in Qin&#8217;s case, it is far from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/democrat-sends-image-of-kkk-hood-to-candace-owens-twitter-defends-post-so-owens-takes-action-on-her-own\/\" title=\"Democrat Sends Image Of KKK Hood To Candace Owens; Twitter Defends Post, So Owens Takes Action On Her Own\">clear cut<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The National People&#8217;s\u2062 Congress Standing Committee that convened on\u200d Tuesday did not\u200d remove Qin&#8217;s other title of State Councillor, a cabinet member who ranks higher than a <span data-qa-component=\"highlight-text\">minister<\/span>, despite having the power to\u2063 do so, experts say.<\/p>\n<p>And despite the omissions from the \u200d <span data-qa-component=\"highlight-text\">foreign<\/span> ministry&#8217;s website, a portrait \u200bof the former U.S. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/not-found-the-mysterious-case-of-chinas-disappeared-foreign-minister\/\" title=\"China's Vanished Foreign Minister: The Enigmatic Mystery\">envoy remained hanging prominently<\/a> on the wall of the Chinese embassy in Washington on Thursday, according to a Reuters witness.<\/p>\n<p>Analysts also point out that Qin would have gone through a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/immigration-experts-republicans-raise-alarm-over-synagogue-terrorists-visa\/\" title=\"Immigration Experts, Republicans Raise Alarm Over Synagogue Terrorist\u2019s Visa\">rigorous vetting process<\/a> to take the role just months ago.<\/p>\n<p>Communist Party \u200bregulations say leaders are vetted based on their ideologies, work performance and adherence to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/mich-ariz-gop-censures-several-lawmakers-over-support-for-impeachment-failure-to-keep-states-red\/\" title=\"Mich., Ariz. GOP censures several lawmakers over support for impeachment, failure to keep states red\">party discipline<\/a>, while they also \u2063have to declare details about their family, including whether they have lived overseas and what assets they have.<\/p>\n<p>Since \u2063coming to power in 2012, Xi\u2064 has put in place a slew of regulations to combat corruption and enforce\u200d party discipline in a bid to address corruption in \u2064ways that analysts say have consolidated members&#8217; loyalty towards him.<\/p>\n<p>But this\u200c also\u200c raises the stakes for Xi if Qin&#8217;s removal is about something more than just health,\u200b especially given his meteoric\u200b ascent through the ranks has \u2062been\u2062 partly\u200d attributed to his closeness to the president.<\/p>\n<p>Qin came to Xi&#8217;s attention when he served as chief protocol officer during Xi&#8217;s \u200bfirst term, a job that would\u200d give him direct access to \u200cXi whenever the latter meets with <span data-qa-component=\"highlight-text\">foreign<\/span> \u200dleaders.<\/p>\n<p>He then made a triple jump from director \u200bof protocol to U.S. ambassador and then to \u2064 <span data-qa-component=\"highlight-text\">foreign<\/span> <span data-qa-component=\"highlight-text\">minister<\/span> \u200c and state councillor in five\u200b years, bullet-train speed by China standards.<\/p>\n<p>The\u200c final leadership lineup for Xi&#8217;s precedent-breaking third term in office revealed earlier this year consisted mostly of officials\u200b he worked with before and trusts,\u200c analysts say.<\/p>\n<p>Xi ditched a traditional process of allowing current and retired top leaders to vote on potential candidates before finalizing a list for a \u2063wider group of party delegates to\u2064 formally endorse.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, the names were decided under Xi&#8217;s &#8220;direct leadership&#8221; after he personally met with potential candidates and consulted with others,\u200b according to state media Xinhua.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This \u200cQin saga <span data-qa-component=\"highlight-text\">ex<\/span>poses the vulnerability of Xi&#8217;s one-man politics,&#8221; said Alfred Wu, associate professor at the Lee Kwan Yew School of Public Policy\u2064 in Singapore.<\/p>\n<p>(Reporting by Yew \u2062Lun \u2062Tian in Beijing; Editing by John Geddie and Lincoln Feast)<\/p>\n<p><strong>Published under:<\/strong> <span><a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/tag\/china\/\" title=\"View all posts in China\">China<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hours after China&#8217;s legislature ousted foreign minister Qin Gang, his photos and mentions vanished from the ministry&#8217;s website. Although some information resurfaced later, Qin&#8217;s name is absent from the list of &#8220;former ministers.&#8221; For days, searching his name yielded no results.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":1987672,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[544],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1987671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-free-beacon"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1987671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/66"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1987671"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1987671\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1987672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1987671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1987671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1987671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}