China’s foreign minister, a tough-talking diplomat seen as something of a protégé of President Xi Jinping, has not been seen in three weeks, fueling speculation about his disappearance at a critical time for relations between Beijing and Washington.
Qin Gang, 57, is one of China’s most prominent voices in the outside world, a former ambassador to the United States before Xi promoted him to foreign minister in December. Although he and his country have recently moderated his style, Qin was an early adopter of the militant rhetoric later known as China’s «wolf warrior diplomacy.»
But Qin appears to have missed a series of high-profile visits, including this month by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and US climate envoy John Kerry.
«It’s impossible to know why he hasn’t been seen, because secrecy is part of the political system in China and there is very little information when it comes to public figures,» said Frans-Paul van der Putten, Clingendael’s principal investigator. Institute, a Dutch think tank.
“What we do know is that this should be a very important time for the Qin Gang, given his experience and knowledge of the West, when all these high-level meetings are taking place,” van der Putten added. «But he’s not there.»
Qin’s last record seen in public was in Beijing on June 25, when he met with his counterparts from Russia, Vietnam and Sri Lanka, according to the Foreign Ministry website.
Ten days later, on July 5, China canceled without explanation a meeting between Qin and the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, who was scheduled to travel to China.
Qin’s absence went largely unnoticed until last week, when he was due to attend a diplomatic meeting at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit in Indonesia. His ministry spokesman, Wang Wenbin, told a briefing two days earlier that Qin would miss the event for «health reasons.»
This quote, reported by Reuters, was omitted from the online transcript of the ministry briefing. Subsequent attempts to inquire about Qin’s whereabouts at the ministry’s daily briefings have gone unanswered, and were later similarly excluded from the written record.
“I have no information to provide on this issue,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Mao Ning said Monday, according to a live broadcast on Taiwan’s CTI TV YouTube channel.
“I don’t know about the case you mentioned,” Mao told one of the Western journalists who repeatedly asked about Qin’s return. “China’s diplomatic activities are carried out as usual,” he told another.
China’s new ambassador to the United States, Xie Feng, did not shed any light on Qin’s whereabouts when he spoke at the Aspen Security Forum on Wednesday.
Asked if Henry Kissinger, the former US secretary of state, who is visiting Beijing, had met with Qin, the Chinese ambassador said: «Well, let’s wait and see.» He declined to give further details.
The ambassador also warned the US against allowing Taiwan Vice President Lai Ching-te to make a stopover in the US on his way to Paraguay next month.
“A priority for us is to stop [Taiwan Vice President Lai] to visit the United States, which is like a big rhino charging at us,» said the ambassador.
The information vacuum about Qin has been filled with speculation and armchair theories by mainstream media and social media internationally, little of which appears to be rooted in confirmed facts.
Not surprising given that Qin is a household name both within China and abroad. In addition to being foreign minister, he is also a state councilor, a high-ranking official within the State Council, the executive body of the ruling Chinese Communist Party.
Until December he was China’s ambassador to the US and previously served as a spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This earned him the nickname «Zhan Gang», which means «Group of Warriors», according to a China Strategy and Analysis Center briefinga think tank based in New Delhi.
“He has been outspoken in saying things that are very, very nationalistic, defending China’s interests and criticizing the Western approach,” said van der Putten, the Netherlands-based China expert. «But he’s a serious diplomat and there are more dimensions to his performance than just being a wolf warrior.»
His relatively short tenure as foreign minister has seen US-China relations drop to new lows and then partially recover: first during then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s August visit to Taiwan , a self-governing island that China considers its own territory, then when the United States shot down in February what it said was a Chinese spy balloon flying over the American mainland.
There has been something of a thaw in recent months, with high-level visits from Yellen, Kerry and in June from Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who met Qin and invited him to visit the US. State Department Summary At the time.
Such unexplained disappearances of high-profile figures are not uncommon in China, which has an opaque police and justice system and severely restricts freedom of expression and other rights. according to international human rights groups.
In 2018, Meng Hongwei, China’s vice minister of public security and acting chairman of Interpol, went missing during a return visit to his homeland from Europe, where Interpol is based. He was later charged with taking bribes and sentenced to more than 13 years in prison, as part of Xi’s sweeping anti-corruption campaign.
In early 2021, Chinese tech billionaire Jack Ma made his first public appearance in three months after making comments critical of China’s regulatory system.
In the past, China has criticized Western democracy for being too changeable and unpredictable compared to its own communist model. But uncertainty about Qin’s future is likely to have an impact on the West’s near-term relationship with China, at least in tone, van der Putten said.
“It should be a really important moment for Qin,” he added. «To be in office but absent is therefore very remarkable.»