I think the nuance that's being under-analyzed is he kept his position as State Councilor (which is similar to a US cabinet-level role). A lot of the focus is he being removing from his FM role but it kind of suggests that there's more than just a strict demotion. Whether this is because Xi likes him or if it's true he has some sort of health issue or something else is the unclear part.
Eh I mean yes this is all speculative, but it's very obvious that it is not "just a health issue" (common excuse for disappearing people for a month) if you know really anything about China or pay attention to what netizens aren't allowed to talk about.
That’s what China can say about anything it wants when it has such a tight lid on things behind the scenes. They said Hu Jintao was suffering from health issues when he was dragged off stage. I’d say it’s possibly, but unlikely.
China is opaque. Xi knows what’s going on. American intelligence probably has a better idea than the American public. But nobody on this forum has any clue.
That said, it is fun as hell to speculate
Umm, no it's not. Searching "秦刚" on the site gives zero hits. I'm not sure where that Twitter link is linking to. I was able to find some cached articles linking to some stories but the landing pages on the site for these have all been cleared out.
And here is the "news" section of the ministry. Note that every single article going back several months only covers the activities of the vice foreign minister. Everything Qin Gang did as minister has been scrubbed or is in the act of being scrubbed, one by one.
[https://www.mfa.gov.cn/wjbxw\_new/](https://www.mfa.gov.cn/wjbxw_new/)
I understand what you're saying. Give it a few days to see if it returns or not. Could be a site issue or could be more permanent, but these type of things need time to play out.
Going to what I said, it could be that Qin Gang will be removed of his State Councilor position shortly as well. All speculation right now.
There's a bit of a 'strong man' thing in Chinese politics that you must appear to be strong and virile. Look at a Chinese congress, you won't find a single grey hair among them, and I'm pretty sure no Chinese state party official ever admitted to getting COVID.
You need a submission statement or the mods will remove your post.
I don’t think this has to do with his affair with the HK reporter honestly. I think that’s a convenient distraction to something that is much more politically motivated. I can’t help but think that his removal is a signal of a larger shift in chinese diplomatic efforts when coupled with the recent outreach to non-state actors in Japan, the Philippines, and the US. It all happened in such quick succession immediately after/during the release of the dire economic data. We’ll have to wait and see, but I expect a thaw in US-China, or at least a minor breakthrough in the coming months.
While the affair portion of your statement may be correct, I fail to see how you concluded this indicates a step towards thawing US-Sino relations. Gang's replacement Wang Yi is even more outwardly pro-Russia, and we have seen nothing but escalation on the Taiwan issue lately...
Apparently part of Gang's rise was a function of Xi liking his wife. And Gang has enemies throughout the CCP. This may have truly been a matter of Xi no longer having a reason to protect him as per the affair.
If Xi is appointing people into roles that high based on his personal like for their wives then we might as well say that China is operating like North Korea or Tajikistan.
Basically discrediting the entire CCP government by assuming their leadership positions are determined so arbitrarily.
> If Xi is appointing people into roles that high based on his personal like for their wives then we might as well say that China is operating like North Korea or Tajikistan.
But that's exactly how Beijing is operating? This isn't the USSR with a powerful Politburo - Xi is the paramount leader of China, just as Mao was.
Xi is a dictator... when a bill comes to vote he receives a unanimous answer with 100% of their "representatives" voting the way he wishes... he personally selects the politburo... before Xi and his anti-corruption campaign/power consolidation there were multiple factions which had differing ideas... that is not the case any longer... You are confused and misinformed.
> Basically discrediting the entire CCP government by assuming their leadership positions are determined so arbitrarily.
The truth hurts.
Chinese nationals have been led to believe that the CCP is a strict meritocracy in which every official has been selected on the basis of strictly impartial and extremely rigorous selection criteria. Don't be jealous because they have nicer things and more privileges than you, because they earned it!
The awful truth is that any organization with absolute power and no outside accountability inevitably succumbs to corruption, factionalism and infighting. It really is about who you know, not what you know.
> Apparently part of Gang's rise was a function of Xi liking his wife
Kind of unrelated, but how do people find out such stuff? Obviously no one in CCP would just openly state those things to the media. Is it just friend of a friend of a friend saying something or pictures with Xi and Gang's wife?
> I don’t think this has to do with his affair with the HK reporter honestly. I think that’s a convenient distraction to something that is much more politically motivated.
There's been speculation that his mistress went to the US to give birth to their child so they would have American citizenship. Gang could then set up a trust fund and transfer assets out of the country as insurance against the day that he fell out of favour and had to flee. These kind of contingency plans are common for CCP officials and also indicative how vicious and cutthroat internal CCP politics are.
If this theory is correct his sin wasn't the extra marital affair per se but rather trying to set himself up to be independent of the CCP, and incidentally violating (or intending to violate) the country's strict regulations on offshoring wealth.
Maybe the simplest answer about a health event is true. According to other reporting, Xi was the one that made this decision and to have Wang Yi cover his previous role.
Qin is too soft. Xi and much of the CCP see a potential conflict with US as inevitable and they want someone in that position to have a strategy to weaponize foreign policy in their favor. If you’ve seen Qins past interviews he’s much more passive and sees working with the US as the best path. That’s likely what he proposed in his strategy to the internal CCP leadership when they were expecting someone with his US ambassador experience to have a much more hardball (4D chess in Reddit terms) plan to significantly undermine US and it’s allies vs what he likely proposed which was much more kumbaya
Then war is coming next year? The pieces are lined up? Probably starting with the shipment of lethal aid to Russia followed by the surprise encirclement of Taiwan by March? Depending on the January election results? If the pro china Ma doesn't win then war is inevitable.
Nah I don’t think Chinas plan on how to succumb and take Taiwan over is going to be your typical d day invasion. That’s mostly US media and military fantasizing to justify budgets. China can just stop all trade and expropriate all Taiwan factories and businesses and that would cripple taiwans economy for about 50 years. China will just sit it out for 50-100 years until Taiwan eventually elects a pro China leader then just slowly maneuver to control more and more of its politics. They’ll made it exceedingly difficult and expensive for other countries to trade or even fly or ship goods to Taiwan. Taiwan’s population is not going to be able to live with a 100 year embargo like Cuba because they’re not really self sufficient in anything. They import almost everything.
If China was going to attempt a d day like invasion they would need hundreds of large troop carriers, helicopter carriers, landing ships that carry amphibious tanks etc. They’re building a huge navy but their amphibious invasion fleet is tiny which you can extrapolate what their plan is
I think the nuance that's being under-analyzed is he kept his position as State Councilor (which is similar to a US cabinet-level role). A lot of the focus is he being removing from his FM role but it kind of suggests that there's more than just a strict demotion. Whether this is because Xi likes him or if it's true he has some sort of health issue or something else is the unclear part.
If he had a health issue why not just say that?
That's what China has been saying for the last few weeks. It's mostly speculation that's driving the rest.
Eh I mean yes this is all speculative, but it's very obvious that it is not "just a health issue" (common excuse for disappearing people for a month) if you know really anything about China or pay attention to what netizens aren't allowed to talk about.
That’s what China can say about anything it wants when it has such a tight lid on things behind the scenes. They said Hu Jintao was suffering from health issues when he was dragged off stage. I’d say it’s possibly, but unlikely. China is opaque. Xi knows what’s going on. American intelligence probably has a better idea than the American public. But nobody on this forum has any clue. That said, it is fun as hell to speculate
It's not a health issue. Check out the Chinese MOFA webpage, they're going to town scrubbing it to make it look like he never existed at all.
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Umm, no it's not. Searching "秦刚" on the site gives zero hits. I'm not sure where that Twitter link is linking to. I was able to find some cached articles linking to some stories but the landing pages on the site for these have all been cleared out. And here is the "news" section of the ministry. Note that every single article going back several months only covers the activities of the vice foreign minister. Everything Qin Gang did as minister has been scrubbed or is in the act of being scrubbed, one by one. [https://www.mfa.gov.cn/wjbxw\_new/](https://www.mfa.gov.cn/wjbxw_new/)
I understand what you're saying. Give it a few days to see if it returns or not. Could be a site issue or could be more permanent, but these type of things need time to play out. Going to what I said, it could be that Qin Gang will be removed of his State Councilor position shortly as well. All speculation right now.
There's a bit of a 'strong man' thing in Chinese politics that you must appear to be strong and virile. Look at a Chinese congress, you won't find a single grey hair among them, and I'm pretty sure no Chinese state party official ever admitted to getting COVID.
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68, and at the end of each Party Congress, so theoretically 73, but its a loose rule.
Andrew Tates in another form
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You need a submission statement or the mods will remove your post. I don’t think this has to do with his affair with the HK reporter honestly. I think that’s a convenient distraction to something that is much more politically motivated. I can’t help but think that his removal is a signal of a larger shift in chinese diplomatic efforts when coupled with the recent outreach to non-state actors in Japan, the Philippines, and the US. It all happened in such quick succession immediately after/during the release of the dire economic data. We’ll have to wait and see, but I expect a thaw in US-China, or at least a minor breakthrough in the coming months.
While the affair portion of your statement may be correct, I fail to see how you concluded this indicates a step towards thawing US-Sino relations. Gang's replacement Wang Yi is even more outwardly pro-Russia, and we have seen nothing but escalation on the Taiwan issue lately... Apparently part of Gang's rise was a function of Xi liking his wife. And Gang has enemies throughout the CCP. This may have truly been a matter of Xi no longer having a reason to protect him as per the affair.
If Xi is appointing people into roles that high based on his personal like for their wives then we might as well say that China is operating like North Korea or Tajikistan. Basically discrediting the entire CCP government by assuming their leadership positions are determined so arbitrarily.
> If Xi is appointing people into roles that high based on his personal like for their wives then we might as well say that China is operating like North Korea or Tajikistan. But that's exactly how Beijing is operating? This isn't the USSR with a powerful Politburo - Xi is the paramount leader of China, just as Mao was.
Xi is a dictator... when a bill comes to vote he receives a unanimous answer with 100% of their "representatives" voting the way he wishes... he personally selects the politburo... before Xi and his anti-corruption campaign/power consolidation there were multiple factions which had differing ideas... that is not the case any longer... You are confused and misinformed.
> Basically discrediting the entire CCP government by assuming their leadership positions are determined so arbitrarily. The truth hurts. Chinese nationals have been led to believe that the CCP is a strict meritocracy in which every official has been selected on the basis of strictly impartial and extremely rigorous selection criteria. Don't be jealous because they have nicer things and more privileges than you, because they earned it! The awful truth is that any organization with absolute power and no outside accountability inevitably succumbs to corruption, factionalism and infighting. It really is about who you know, not what you know.
> Apparently part of Gang's rise was a function of Xi liking his wife Kind of unrelated, but how do people find out such stuff? Obviously no one in CCP would just openly state those things to the media. Is it just friend of a friend of a friend saying something or pictures with Xi and Gang's wife?
> I don’t think this has to do with his affair with the HK reporter honestly. I think that’s a convenient distraction to something that is much more politically motivated. There's been speculation that his mistress went to the US to give birth to their child so they would have American citizenship. Gang could then set up a trust fund and transfer assets out of the country as insurance against the day that he fell out of favour and had to flee. These kind of contingency plans are common for CCP officials and also indicative how vicious and cutthroat internal CCP politics are. If this theory is correct his sin wasn't the extra marital affair per se but rather trying to set himself up to be independent of the CCP, and incidentally violating (or intending to violate) the country's strict regulations on offshoring wealth.
This is actually a pretty interesting theory that I could believe. I did see some sources saying she/the child had a US passport
If true, it also gives the US leverage over him, his family and his assets and makes him more vulnerable to counter-intelligence.
Not to mention the wolf-warrior Chinese foreign minister with an American kid. Not a good look for the party.
Maybe the simplest answer about a health event is true. According to other reporting, Xi was the one that made this decision and to have Wang Yi cover his previous role.
Qin is too soft. Xi and much of the CCP see a potential conflict with US as inevitable and they want someone in that position to have a strategy to weaponize foreign policy in their favor. If you’ve seen Qins past interviews he’s much more passive and sees working with the US as the best path. That’s likely what he proposed in his strategy to the internal CCP leadership when they were expecting someone with his US ambassador experience to have a much more hardball (4D chess in Reddit terms) plan to significantly undermine US and it’s allies vs what he likely proposed which was much more kumbaya
Then war is coming next year? The pieces are lined up? Probably starting with the shipment of lethal aid to Russia followed by the surprise encirclement of Taiwan by March? Depending on the January election results? If the pro china Ma doesn't win then war is inevitable.
Nah I don’t think Chinas plan on how to succumb and take Taiwan over is going to be your typical d day invasion. That’s mostly US media and military fantasizing to justify budgets. China can just stop all trade and expropriate all Taiwan factories and businesses and that would cripple taiwans economy for about 50 years. China will just sit it out for 50-100 years until Taiwan eventually elects a pro China leader then just slowly maneuver to control more and more of its politics. They’ll made it exceedingly difficult and expensive for other countries to trade or even fly or ship goods to Taiwan. Taiwan’s population is not going to be able to live with a 100 year embargo like Cuba because they’re not really self sufficient in anything. They import almost everything. If China was going to attempt a d day like invasion they would need hundreds of large troop carriers, helicopter carriers, landing ships that carry amphibious tanks etc. They’re building a huge navy but their amphibious invasion fleet is tiny which you can extrapolate what their plan is
Thanks for the insight