Last week, Chinese authorities announced that its foreign minister Qin Gang would not attend a diplomatic gathering in Indonesia. The officials cited health reasons for his no-show. There wouldn't have been anything unusual about it, if not for the fact that Qin hasn't been seen in public for almost three weeks.
The foreign minister was last seen with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrey Rudenko, in Beijing just after the Wagner mutiny. "Given China’s status and influence in the world, it’s indeed very strange that its foreign minister has not appeared in public for more than 20 days,” said Deng Yuwen, a former editor of a Communist Party newspaper who now lives in the US, told CNN.
Qin was also nowhere to be seen during the high-profile visits by US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen in early July or during the visit by climate envoy John Kerry.
Qin's vanishing act has sparked speculations in the country amid reports of his extramarital affair with a Chinese television personality. Rumour mills have it that Qin was having an affair with a TV show host named Fu Xiaotian and that they had a child out of wedlock.
The last time the 57-year-old rising star of Chinese politics disappeared from public view was just for eight days over the Lunar New Year Holiday.
The foreign ministry has so far made no remarks about Qin's absence. When asked about the matter, spokeswoman Mao Ning said that China’s diplomatic activities are underway as usual. On whether Qin still is the foreign minister, Mao referred reporters to the ministry’s website, where he is still listed as foreign minister.
On the reports of his affairs, Mao said she was unaware of the rumours. China's Communist Party do not tolerate its cadres having extramarital relationships.
However, speculations of his fate continued to dominate the media after journalist and analyst Phil Cunningham took to Twitter to state how his piece was edited to omit references to Qin. "Qin Gang is missing. Not only is he missing from the news cycle in China, but he's missing from my article! As run by the SCMP (South China Morning Post) on July 15, five sentences about Qin were removed (without notice) from the article after it was accepted for publication."
Hu Xijin, former editor-in-chief of the Global Times, also took to Weibo to address the rumours. "There’s something everyone is talking about but can’t be talked about publicly," Hu Xijin said without referencing Qin. "There needs to be a balance between keeping the operations running and respecting the public’s right to information."
Qin was considered one of the aggressive "wolf warriors" who brought a new, antagonistic style to Chinese diplomacy. He was close to Xi himself and has been tipped to take over in future from Wang Yi, as the top foreign affairs official in the Chinese Communist Party