High-ranking government officials used to go missing all the time from Communist countries. The initial explanation was usually some kind of “tragic” accident, like falling off a ten-story balcony or the ever-popular “car accident.”
The truth that emerged decades later was usually a lot simpler and a lot bloodier. But even today, Communist apparatchiks have been known to take a header or die of a “heart attack.”
It’s highly unusual for a member of the leadership in China and a close confidant of President Xi Jinping to go missing for three weeks with no official explanation forthcoming from Beijing. But that’s what’s happened to Foreign Minister Qin Gang. Qin is the former Chinese ambassador to the U.S. and has missed several high-level conferences and meetings.
“Qin’s disappearance does cast much uncertainty and confusion over the consistency, stability, and credibility of Beijing’s decision-making,” said Yun Sun, director of the China Program at the Stimson Center in Washington. “If a vice-national level leader can just disappear without much of an explanation, people find it difficult to trust and count on any Chinese leader or official and their positions.”
Qin’s place was taken by Wang Yi, a member of the Communist Party’s Politburo and China’s top foreign-affairs official. Wang told U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken that Qin was absent due to “health reasons.”
The foreign minister was last seen on June 25, when Qin met counterparts from Vietnam and Sri Lanka, as well as Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Rudenko Andrey Yurevich, shortly after a botched armed rebellion in Russia. Qin was set to meet with the European Union’s foreign-policy head Josep Borell in Beijing on July 10, but Beijing canceled the visit five days earlier without explanation.
Qin didn’t meet with Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen during her visit to Beijing in early July. He has also been absent from meetings with U.S. climate envoy John Kerry, who was set to wrap up a four-day visit to China on Wednesday.
There was no hint that Qin was in any political trouble with Xi. He rose very rapidly through the top leadership of the Communist Party, going from U.S. ambassador to foreign minister in just two years.
But there are whispers that all is not well with Qin’s personal life. A rumored extramarital affair with a Hong Kong journalist who might have ties to British intelligence would be one possible explanation for Qin’s disappearance from view.
According to a report by The Times, the diplomat has an extramarital affair with a Hong Kong-based television personality, Fu Xiaotian. As per Asia Sentinel, 40-year-old Xiaotian is suspected to be a double agent and has links with British intelligence.
As a TV anchor at PhoenixTVHK, Xiaotian interviewed top international personalities. Recently, she had interviewed Gang where the duo’s “gesture” during the conversation was a little bit different or said to be “suspicious”. Her last tweet featured three pictures of Gang’s interview.
Although she is married, there are not many details about her husband. In fact, there were reports that claimed Qin was her child’s father.
It’s probably more likely that Qin has a bad cold.
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