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Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang address the media in Berlin, Germany.
The Qin Gang soap opera
Qin gone! But where? And more importantly, why?
Days after China abruptly canned its foreign minister, replacing him with the previous dude, Qin Gang is still missing. We don't know whether he's been locked up in a secret prison, just been told to lay low for a while, or is simply working on his tan on a Hainan beach.
The brief statement announcing Qin’s removal has done anything but end speculation over what caused his fall from Xi Jinping's grace. Chinese netizens are obsessing about the sparks flying in an interview with Fu Xiaotian (recently pulled from YouTube), a US-based TV correspondent with whom Qin was reportedly having a fling. If you go further down the conspiracy gossip rabbit hole, the journalist might have been a former spook — perhaps even a double agent to fund her lavish lifestyle — or First Lady Peng Liyuan ordered the purge because she's close to Qin's wife.
Regardless, the ruling Communist Party hates when its internal affairs get so much public attention. (Remember when Xi cracked down on the CCP rumor mill ahead of the 20th Party Congress.) On cue, the Foreign Ministry has scrubbed Qin from its website and pushed back against all "malicious hype."
We probably will never know what actually happened with Qin Gang, but please let China watchers have some fun with the most exciting CCP drama since the Bo Xilai scandals almost a decade ago.
China replaces foreign minister Qin Gang
Is democracy dead in Israel? Will a fugitive decide Spain's next prime minister? What does Qin Gang's removal say about China? Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week on World In :60.
Is democracy dead in Israel?
No, not at all. It's very much alive. It's precisely the fact there has been such an extraordinary outcry among so many Israeli citizens and completely peaceful, mind you, over so many months because they're not happy with the efforts to reform, and by reform, I mean, undermine Israel's independent judiciary. The first piece of that that has passed in the last 24 hours is by itself certainly not a death knell for democracy, though it probably would allow Netanyahu to appoint cabinet members that could allow him to no longer face jeopardy from these corruption cases that have been against him. If they persist with the next couple of pieces of legislation that would allow the Knesset, the legislature, to overturn with a simple majority, a judicial decision, that would be a much more significant threat to democracy. We'll see how that plays out over the fall, but certainly this is going to impact the economy, society, and the rest.
Will a fugitive decide Spain's next prime minister?
No, what's happened is that Prime Minister Sanchez recognized that by calling early elections, he could make everybody worry about the far-right Vox party and that if they went down in the polls, there was a shot for him to stay on his PM. That has played out pretty well. The center-right in Spain has done much better, but they don't have enough votes to create a parliament because they don't have a majority and that's because Vox has fallen apart. They're talking about like, anti-woke politics at a time when everyone wants to talk about the economy and people increasingly worried about climate change. So, Vox got destroyed. What's probably going to happen is, can't get a majority and so you'll have to have yet another election. We'll play this out again in the fall.
Finally, what does Qin Gang's removal say about China?
This is the former, now former foreign minister, pretty clear he was going to be out. We haven't heard from him at all in four weeks. China said he was ill for a couple days then didn't. There've been all these rumors and scandals around him. And the reason I thought he was out is because Chinese state media was not trying to repress all of the social commentary about those rumors at any point in the last couple weeks. And given that he was a Xi Jinping direct appointee and skyrocketed and how fast he was able to get the appointment, it was pretty clear there were serious problems. But I don't think this changes foreign policy in China, one whit. I was talking to the US ambassador to the UN the other day, has been dealing with the Chinese ambassador all the way through and she's like, "Nah, he's still been engaging with me as he normally does," so it's bad news for him, but no change for Chinese policy.
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(Now former) Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang attends a press conference after talks with his Dutch counterpart Wopke Hoekstra in Beijing.
China's missing foreign minister is out (of a job)
A full month after he vanished from public view, China confirmed the exit of Qin Gang as foreign minister. Qin will be replaced by Wang Yi, who had the job for almost a decade before Qin and is currently the country's most senior diplomat. (Wang also runs foreign policy for the ruling Communist Party, which puts him higher in the CCP pecking order than Qin).
Qin was a rising star who was fast-tracked to the post by Xi Jinping despite a bitter rivalry with Wang. But then he abruptly disappeared, initially for health reasons, as rumors swirled that he was cheating on his wife with a journalist. The Chinese government did not give any reason for his departure.
While the shakeup probably won't have much of an impact on China's foreign policy, which like everything is stage-managed by Xi himself, it might have two spillover effects.
First, with Wang again in charge, Chinese diplomats could feel emboldened to return to aggressive "wolf warrior" rhetoric — right when Beijing is trying to restore dialogue with the US and cool things down with Europe. That said, Wang, 69, will likely only take over the job for one or two years until a suitable replacement is found.
Second, and perhaps more importantly, Qin's departure is (potentially) bad news for his mentor. While state media will quietly sweep the scandal under the rug, the messiness of it all does show that political infighting is still bubbling under the surface even under Xi's tight control of the party. And it highlights one of the main dangers of "Maximum Xi," Eurasia Group's No. 2 top geopolitical risk for 2023: "With few checks and balances left to constrain him and no dissenting voices to challenge his views, Xi's ability to make big mistakes is also unrivaled."
On the one hand, Qin's exit — although probably driven by personal reasons over policy — sure looks like an unforced error by China's leader. On the other, as we've seen with ending zero COVID, Xi also has an uncanny ability to move past screwups very quickly and then act like they never happened.
Where is China's foreign minister?
What are the consequences from Russia's exit from the Black Sea grain deal? Where is Chinese foreign minister Qin Gang? "Oppenheimer" is out. Will you be watching? Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week on World In :60.
What are the consequences from Russia's exit from the Black Sea grain deal?
Well, a lot of antagonism from the Global South because prices are now going up. That's why the Russians hadn't wanted to leave. Look, I mean, there is an ammonia pipeline that was sabotaged that the Russians wanted to use traversing Ukraine, that hasn't gotten fixed. They also wanna be able to get back into SWIFT for the agricultural banks, and neither of those things happen. So they have pulled out of the deal. They are also now attacking Odessa, stepped up way, including grain capacity and blowing up a whole bunch of food. And this is, these are all war crimes. And now you've got a whole bunch of sub-Saharan countries in particular that are gonna be angry with Russia as a consequence, one of the places they've done comparatively well since the beginning of the war.
Where is Chinese foreign minister Qin Gang?
I have no idea, and especially because, I mean, I know him pretty well. When he was ambassador to Washington, I used to see him all the time and he is very close to the Chinese president. So the fact that it's been about four weeks now and he has not been heard from, initially, the Chinese government said it was a medical issue. They stopped saying that after the first couple of times. And the only thing we've heard is some scandals about, you know, maybe a relationship with some journalist. I have no idea, but clearly given who he is and his backing, it's going to be a fairly big deal. And some long knives from opponents have to be seriously out for him to be away as long as he has. Hopefully we'll hear about that soon because you need an effective foreign minister.
"Oppenheimer" is out. Will you be watching?
Well, I'm not watching "Barbie." I wasn't sure if I was going to, but then I saw my buddy Fred Kaplan, who wrote "Wizards of Armageddon" and is like probably one of the preeminent historians on the atomic bomb, he saw an early version of the film, all three hours of it, and said it was not only historically accurate, but also fantastic. And that makes me want to go see it, because let's face it, I mean, this is the guy, the father of the Manhattan Project, made the atomic bomb happen. He is a very, very controversial figure, and it's an issue we need to be talking a lot more about because we are facing much greater dangers from nuclear proliferation and from nuclear war today than at any point since 1962. So I'm glad it's coming out and hopefully it raises some awareness.
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