STILL ‘NO INFORMATION’ ON ABSENCE OF CHINA’S TOP DIPLOMAT QIN GANG FROM PUBLIC EYE, SAYS CHINA

Fri 21 July 2023:

Since early this year, Beijing has been buzzing with intense diplomatic traffic, with numerous heads of government and state visiting the country.

President Xi Jinping personally received a number of former and current foreign officials, including former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

However, China’s Foreign Minister Qin Gang has been out of the public eye since last month, with little known about his current whereabouts.

Chinese foreign ministry said on Thursday (July 20) that it still had “no information to provide” on the absence of foreign minister Qin Gang. The foreign minister’s last recorded public appearance has been more than three weeks ago.

Previously, the foreign ministry announced that Qin would not be attending the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) meeting from July 11-12 in Jakarta. The ministry said that the absence was due to health reasons. It said later on Wednesday (July 19) that Wang Yi – Qin’s predecessor – will also represent China at BRICS Summit in Johannesburg on July 24-25.

The foreign ministry has since rebuffed questions from journalists at daily briefings and has declined to offer any further information on the foreign minister’s absence. It has also left out the exchanges including the initial health comments from official transcript.

When Semafor.com’s Steve Clemons on Wednesday pressed China’s top diplomat in Washington at an event in the US about the whereabouts of Qin, Ambassador Xie Feng referred to the statement of China’s Foreign Ministry.

The ministry had said that China’s foreign affairs chief Wang Yi will represent Beijing at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit in Indonesia last week.

Qin, the ministry added, was unavailable because of “health issues.” There has been no more explanation by Beijing about Qin, so far.

Qin, 57, of Han ethnicity, is a native of Huailai, in Hebei province. He is married with a son.

Known to be close to Xi, Qin was appointed as China’s foreign minister, and succeeded Wang, last December.

A graduate in international politics from the University of International Relations, he joined the Communist Party of China (CPC) in November 1986 and began his first job at China’s Foreign Ministry two years later.

He is also a member of the 20th CPC Central Committee with the rank of a state councilor.

Is there “any chance he (Henry Kissinger) met Qin Gang (in Beijing), the foreign minister,” Clemons asked Xie.

“Let’s wait and see,” replied Xie, who succeeded Qin as China’s ambassador to the US.

According to the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Qin was last seen in public on June 25 when he hosted counterparts from Sri Lanka and Vietnam, Mohamed Uvais Mohamed Ali Sabry and Bui Thanh Son.

The same day, Qin hosted Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Andrey Rudenko, who flew to Beijing soon after paramilitary Wagnar group’s Yevgeny Prigozhin spearheaded a resurrection inside the country amid war with Ukraine, only to be called off later.

Amid Qin’s absence, Beijing also canceled the EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell’s trip to China.

There is no mention of any other activity by Qin in the past 25 days.

A prolonged absence will “confuse other countries seeking to build channels of communication with China”, said Wen-Ti Sung, a political scientist at the Australian National University also quoted by Reuters.

“Predictability and transparency are essential to regularizing dialogues and to trust-building, both of which are key ingredients to sustained cooperation.”

“China’s diplomacy, contrary to the media hype, is driven by game theory, think tank analysis, and strategic alignment with its economic and political objectives, not personality,” Einar told Anadolu from Beijing.

“So, who the foreign (minister) is, matters less than the country’s objectives and policies.

“The most a minister can add, assuming they are competent, is the ability to accurately read situations and their personal style,” said Einar, a senior fellow at Taihe Institute.

Before being elevated as China’s top diplomat, Qin served in important positions, including the chief of the protocol department and a spokesman for the foreign ministry.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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