Since China’s top officials called an emergency meeting and suspended Foreign Minister Qin Gang, information has also started to disappear from the website of the Foreign Ministry, writes Reuters.
Although some of the information was restored a few days later, 57-year-old Qin’s name does not appear on the list of former ministers, and several days of attempts to find information about him on China’s Foreign Ministry website were returned with not found as the answer.
The former minister has not been seen for more than a month. The ministry explained in mid-July that the minister does not participate in public events due to health complications.
Wang Yi, an experienced diplomat, is now serving as Foreign Minister, but no reason has been given for the sudden change.
A spokeswoman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Thursday, the 27th of July, that Beijing will soon provide information about Qin and opposes harmful talk. This was in response to a reporter who asked about the transparency of Qin’s removal.
Qin’s unusually long and unexplained absence, rapid tenure, and other oddities, such as changes to information on the ministry’s website, mean speculation will continue.
Council on Foreign Relations senior researcher Ian Johnson said: “The truth will eventually come out – it usually does in China, although it sometimes takes months or years – but the way he was dismissed makes it unlikely that it was for health reasons.”
Wu Qian, a political analyst in Beijing, said he almost certainly ruled out health problems as the cause of the incident.
If it was a question of health problems, a replacement would be appointed for Qin instead of the minister being suspended.
Qin was in office for only half a year – from December 2022.
In China, officials have more than once disappeared from the public eye, and then diligently erased from the collective memory. Changing and adapting history has a decades-long tradition in China.
True, Qin’s case is far from completely understandable and clear. Although the Standing Committee of the Chinese People’s Congress has the power to strip Qin of his status as a State Councilor (a rank higher than a minister), it has not done so. A portrait of the former minister can still be seen on a wall in the Chinese embassy in the US, according to a Reuters witness.
In addition, according to experts, Qin recently went through thorough checks before taking office.
Qin rose to power unusually quickly, and with the help of President Xi. Xi bypassed the standard process where current and former political leaders vote on potential candidates before a list of candidates is put to a party vote. Instead, the president personally selected the candidates.
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