Chinese state media ended weeks of speculation as it confirmed Tuesday afternoon that the country’s foreign minister Qin Gang had been ousted in favour of his predecessor Wang Yi.
Qin only took up the role in December last year and his conspicuous absence from diplomatic events had attracted international attention in recent weeks amid rumours of an internal CCP palace coup against him.
Chinese officials had previously stated that Qin was too ill to carry out his duties before both the CCP’s Standing Committee and Politburo rubber-stamped his departure Monday.
The former Chinese ambassador to America Qin Gang was a close confidant of President Xi Jinping. His ascendancy to the foreign policy role last year is understood to have angered many more senior CCP officials. Qin’s whereabouts are as of yet unknown. The former foreign minister was last seen on a state visit to Sri Lanka last month.
The rumours circulating about Qin’s departure include an alleged affair with a Chinese TV anchor as well as a deep-seated grudge between him and his now-successor Wang Yi. The mystery behind Qin’s exit sets a major precedent in CCP internal politics and potentially puts an end to the career of a once rising star in domestic Chinese politics.
During his brief tenure as Chinese foreign minister, Qin earned a negative reputation in the West as a caustic individual, particularly in Europe where his veiled threats against German leadership over attempts to deleverage the European economy from China earned him notoriety in international relations circles.
Qin’s removal could smooth the way for a visit for the EU’s top foreign policy official Josep Borrell after an initial visit was postponed over what appeared to be Beijing’s grievances about Europe’s close geopolitical alignment with America over Ukraine and economic decoupling from China.
The new Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi is known to have a much stronger working relationship with European leaders and has travelled to various EU capitals recently to attempt to salvage the Belt and Road initiative and advertise China’s alternative peace plans to end the war in Ukraine.
Wang personally welcomed veteran U.S. diplomat Henry Kissinger last week to Beijing as he and the elder American statesman discussed ways to improve poor bilateral relations between the two countries.
His relationship to the EU’s Borrell was instrumental in toning down the planned EU sanctions against China motivated by accusations that Chinese technology companies were breaking sanctions to sell weapons to Russia.
Wang earned praise from Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, among others, for his conciliatory peace proposals regarding Ukraine that called for the withdrawal of Russian troops and the cessation of sanctions against Moscow in a bid to de-escalate tensions.
Wang previously served as Chinese foreign affairs minister between 2013 and 2022 and earned international attention for statements downplaying human rights abuses in Xinjiang. He also made comments deemed racist by many that Asians could never become Westerners no matter how much they dyed their hair blonde. Neither Wang nor any Chinese official made mention of the announcement of his return as foreign minister at the meeting of the BRICS group in South Africa.
EU-Chinese relations are at a considerable impasse as European leaders remain split on whether to continue ties and run the risk of overdependence on Beijing or to follow the instruction of Washington and begin to mitigate their exposure to the Chinese economy.
