Where is Qin Gang? China’s foreign minister has not seen fossils of 350,000-year-old miniature hippos in Crete for three weeks

An unusually long absence from public appearances has sparked speculation about Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang.

The 57-year-old, who only took office in March, last appeared publicly at meetings on June 25, when he received Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Rudenko in Beijing. The Beijing Foreign Ministry released a photo of the meeting. Qin Gang has not been seen since then.

Just a few days before the minister’s meeting with EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell in Beijing, scheduled for July 10, China canceled the meeting. A reason was not given. Qin Gang also did not attend a summit meeting of the foreign ministers of the Southeast Asian community of ASEAN last week. Instead, China’s top diplomat Wang Yi, who is above Qin Gang in the power hierarchy, traveled.

When asked why Qin Gang is not attending the ASEAN meeting, a spokesman for Beijing’s foreign ministry said last Thursday that it was not possible for health reasons. When asked again on Monday about the long absence, a ministry spokeswoman said only that she had “no information” on the subject.

Qin Gang was ambassador to Washington prior to his appointment as foreign minister. Before that, he was deputy foreign minister and chief of protocol to state and party leader Xi Jinping from 2014 to 2017. He is considered a nationalist hardliner, even though he was less confrontational as ambassador to the United States than he had been in Beijing.

(yam/sda/dpa)