Gone for three weeks: riddles about China’s foreign minister Qin Gang

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In China, he is also called “Wolf Warrior”, mainly because of his tough attitude towards the West. This took Qin Gang (57) far. At the end of 2022, he was appointed China’s new foreign minister. Since then he has made many public appearances. For example, at the end of June. Qin Gang met Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Rudenko in Beijing.

In the meantime, however, the 57-year-old seems to have disappeared. It’s been three weeks since his last appearance. Important appointments, such as a meeting with his counterpart of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken (61) last week, have been cancelled. Officially for health reasons. The ministry has not yet provided any further information, reports “Spiegel”. Wang Yi (69) is currently deputy to the failed foreign minister. He knows exactly what to do. He had been China’s foreign minister since 2013, when he was replaced by Qin Gang.

He speaks fluent English

Qin Gang, who hails from the northeastern city of Tianjin, has been Beijing’s top representative in Washington since last year and is tasked with restoring ties between the world’s two largest economies. Qin said in 2020 that China’s image in the West has deteriorated because Europe and the US have never accepted China’s political system and the country’s economic rise. He is fluent in English and has worked for several years at the Chinese Embassy in London.

From 2018 to last year, Qin served as deputy foreign minister. Before 2018, he had frequent meetings with President Xi Jinping (70) in his capacity as head of the Protocol Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The diplomat previously worked for several years as a spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. (AFP/jmh)

Source: Blick