Qin Gang

Wednesday

Ian Williams

Where has Xi Jinping’s foreign minister gone?

From our UK edition

This is the week that James Cleverly planned to be in Beijing to ‘engage, robustly and also constructively’ with China’s communist leaders. But the Foreign Secretary put his trip on hold because the man he planned to engage went missing. Since 25 June foreign minister Qin Gang has vanished without trace, leaving Cleverly twiddling his thumbs and the world wondering what on earth is going on at the top of the Chinese Communist party. The whole bizarre spectacle underlines the challenges of engaging with a system that is so deeply opaque. The mystery deepened on Tuesday when state media reported that Qin was being replaced by his predecessor Wang Yi after just seven months in the job. There was no explanation, and no word on the fate of Qin.

Thursday

Daniel DePetris

After decades of waiting, China goes on the diplomatic offensive

China has been an epicenter of diplomacy over the last month and American officials can’t help but take notice of the shift. Statesmen flying to China, hat in hand, to sign business deals with Chinese firms or enlist Chinese diplomats to assist in solving international disputes gives the foreign policy graybeards ulcers. The general rule seems to be: what’s good for China is bad for the United States. There’s no question that China’s Xi Jinping has had a good few weeks. After being occupied with a nationwide Covid-19 disaster that lasted for three years, Xi, a man whose entire legacy depends on China transforming into a superpower on par with or perhaps even surpassing the US, isn’t wasting any time before injecting his country back into the diplomatic arena.

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