Last year, China’s foreign minister, Qin Gang, suddenly disappeared. Qin was a rising star in Chinese politics and a protegé of China’s strongman leader, Xi Jinping. In the first episode of our three-part investigation, we chart Qin’s rise and begin to untangle the mystery of his disappearance. This series was originally published in October. Further Listening:- Episode 2: The Affair - Apple | Spotify - Episode 3: The Downfall - Apple | Spotify We'll be back with something new on January 2. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: What happened to Qin Gang on June 25th?
When he became foreign minister, a friend of mine who'd been a reporter in China called me and said, do you remember Xin Gong from the UPI Bureau? And I said, yeah. And he said, that's the foreign minister. And I was just flabbergasted that that same kind of gangly, kind of cocky kid was now foreign minister.
There's an expectation about how you rise through the Chinese political ranks. And it's not generally a fast process. You're supposed to put in your time and move up rung by rung. That's how most of Qin's career at the foreign ministry went.
He did various stints at the Chinese embassy in London, and he worked as a foreign ministry spokesperson in Beijing, where he responded to reporters' questions with scripted talking points. But then, something happened that would put Qin on the fast track. He got a new job and a new boss, one who did things differently.
In 2012, Xi Jinping became General Secretary of the Communist Party and the following year, President of China.
Xi Jinping is the most powerful, the most forceful Chinese leader in recent decades. Ever since he came to power in late 2012, Xi Jinping basically has embarked on this never-ending effort to centralize power into his own hands. Xi Jinping basically made himself the chairman of everything in China.
Soon after Xi came to power, Qin landed a job that would put him in close proximity to Xi. In 2014, Qin became Xi's chief of protocol at the foreign ministry.
Protocol should be confused with sort of which fork to use at dinner and whether the fish knife goes on the left or the right of the butter knife. It's organizing the movements of the leaders and the moving parts of a visit.
That's Danny Russell. He was a diplomat at the State Department during the Obama administration. And he worked with Chin a few times when Chin was chief of protocol. Like in 2015, when Chin accompanied Xi on his first official visit to the U.S. Do you remember any stories from Chin Gang at that time?
I do have a recollection of Qinggang and the Chinese team being really passionate and angst-ridden over the possibility that there could be a protest that would impinge on the eyeballs of Xi Jinping, of the leader. I think there was almost a sense of terror that if something as embarrassing and politically shameful as that were to occur, that they were going down with the ship.
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Chapter 2: Who were Qin Gang's last public meetings with?
He was very unpopular among the policy people and even quite a few of the business leaders.
Here's Danny, one of the former diplomats we heard from earlier.
I think they found him arrogant, even impolite, and at other times, highly formulaic. I don't know how he was dealing with his in-government counterparts, in part because they refused to meet with him for the better part of a year while he was in Washington. That's another story.
What? Why did they refuse to meet with him?
I may be putting it a little bit strongly, but, you know, he arrived during a very chilly moment in U.S.-China relations.
At that time, President Biden had recently come into the White House. But the change in administration didn't change much about the U.S.-China relationship. The two countries were still at odds over a long list of issues. Taiwan, trade, espionage. And the disputes were getting personal. The new U.S.
ambassador to China, Nicholas Burns, was getting beastly treatment by the Chinese who just shut him out mercilessly. I think in some circles there was certainly a view that said, you know what, let's give them a taste of their own medicine.
A little quid pro quo.
Right. Try a little quid pro quo. Here's some reciprocity for you, buddy.
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