Qin Gang, China’s erstwhile foreign minister, has officially been replaced by Wang Yi, China’s top diplomat, in a surprise reshuffle that provided a sliver of clarity regarding Qin’s mysterious month-long absence. But many questions remain unanswered.
On Tuesday, the standing committee of China’s National People’s Congress convened a surprise session. The brief readout of the meeting stated that Qin had been removed as foreign minister, stalling, for now, the career of a former rising star of the Chinese Communist party (CCP) and close adviser to Xi Jinping, China’s leader.
Qin has not participated in any official events since 25 June. And after early comments suggesting that Qin’s absence was due to health reasons, no official explanation was offered.
The fact that after Tuesday’s meeting Qin remains on the State Council, China’s top administrative body, has only added to the confusion about his fate, as it suggests he has not been completely purged. Still, Qin now joins the ranks of the Chinese elite who have disappeared without any clear explanation.
Hu Jintao
The most recent – and most public – fall from grace of a senior Chinese official was that of Hu Jintao, Xi’s predecessor as the general secretary of the CCP, the most powerful position in China. At the closing ceremony of the 20th party congress in October, Hu was led out of the Great Hall of the People in full view of the journalists who had been let in to film the event. The official explanation was that Hu had suffered from a sudden and brief spell of ill health. Many observers suspected that the real reason was political. But in December, Hu appeared at the funeral of Jiang Zemin, another former Chinese leader, confirming that he had not been purged entirely.
Jack Ma
In November 2020, Jack Ma, one of China’s most successful and well-known billionaires, disappeared for three months. The founder of the e-commerce business Alibaba had given a speech weeks earlier criticising China’s financial regulators. Within days Ma was summoned to meet authorities, and his planned IPO of Ant Group, Alibaba’s fintech spin-off, was cancelled. Ma resurfaced months later, seemingly chastened, and has since kept a lower profile.
Guo Guangchang
Guo Guangchang was one of at least five executives to go missing in 2015. The chairman of Fosun International, an asset management conglomerate that also owns the Wolverhampton Wanderers football club, was detained in December by the police to assist with a corruption investigation. He was released a few days later.
Fan Bingbing
It is not just politicians and business people who risk falling foul of the authorities. In July 2018 the megastar actor Fan Bingbing suddenly disappeared from social media and public appearances, fuelling rumours she had fled China or was under house arrest. She reappeared nearly a year later, having been fined about 883m yuan (£96.2m) for tax evasion.
Xi Jinping
In September 2012, Xi, then the vice-president, disappeared from public view, cancelling appointments with several foreign leaders. He reappeared two weeks later with no formal explanation, although Chinese officials said that he had suffered a sports injury. But while most of the disappeared keep a low profile after their absences, Xi did the opposite: he was anointed as China’s leader two months later.
