Where has Xi Jinping’s foreign minister gone?

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. ‘Qin Gang has been removed as foreign minister. Wang Yi has been appointed as the Chinese foreign minister,’ ran a terse statement in the CCP’s Global Times.

It has been a strange and surreal few weeks, even by CCP standards. Every mention and image of Qin has been deleted from China’s foreign ministry webpage. The information vacuum surrounding his disappearance has been filled with all manner of rumours about marital infidelity, a love child – and even foreign espionage.

His sudden departure is all the more intriguing because he is a protégé of President Xi Jinping. He was regarded as a rising star, one of the new generation of snarling ‘wolf warrior’ diplomats, pleasing his boss with tirades against a decadent and declining West. A former ambassador to the United States, he was appointed foreign minister in December ahead of others regarded by China watchers as more senior. Shortly afterwards, he accused the US of ‘all-out containment and suppression’. He said his country’s friendship with Russia was a beacon of strength and stability which ‘set an example for foreign relations’ and asked: ‘Why should the US demand that China refrain from supplying arms to Russia when it sells arms to Taiwan?’

That said, those who knew him say he could be charming and open, and he was expected to play a key role in putting relations with America back on a more stable footing.