Former Chinese Foreign Minister: Spy or state secret?

When China convened its annual National People’s Congress in Beijing on Tuesday, one rising star from last year’s gathering was absent: former Foreign Minister Qin Gang.

Ahead of this year’s meeting, Chinese state media announced that Qin had resigned as a deputy to the National People’s Congress. The announcement, however, did little to unify views on why Qin had not appeared in public since late June last year and why he was suddenly removed from office seven months after taking office.

Reports citing anonymous and related sources suggest that his disappearance may be related to espionage and that he may have died or committed suicide. Some have focused on his alleged romantic relationship with former Chinese TV host Fu Xiaotian, who has not been seen since she posted on Twitter last April while en route to an unspecified destination. Appear in public.

spy?

Dennis Wilder, a former U.S. national security official, told VOA: “Try to get a Chinese to tell Qin Gang’s story, and you’re not going to get it. Because they can’t talk about it because the fact is, it’s espionage.”

Others disagree, including Nigel Inkster, the former head of operations and intelligence at the British Secret Intelligence Service, also known as MI6. Inkster said in a telephone interview with VOA from London that the news of Qin’s resignation confirmed that Inkster had heard “months ago” that Qin was still alive and that his case “will be resolved soon.”

In early December, online media news outlets reported Politico Citing “several people with access to senior Chinese officials,” Qin and several other senior officers in the People’s Liberation Army were influenced by Western intelligence. Column published on February 12 Washington post Mentioned the rumor that Qin is a Russian asset.

“They can’t all be true, can they?” Inkster said.

American political scientist and China expert Joan Tofel Dreher also suspected that the fall of Qin was caused by espionage.

“What was his motive?” she said. “What can foreign intelligence agencies offer him that he doesn’t already have?”

Dreher added that, nonetheless, extramarital affairs and extramarital births could leave Qin vulnerable to blackmail from foreign powers. Inkster agrees.

“If the Russians [who compromised Qin]it’s probably because they found something in him,” he said.

Both analysts believe there are more questions surrounding Qin’s rumored love interest, Fu.

The mystery about Fu Xiaotian

In July 2023, as Qin’s disappearance attracted worldwide attention, Fu’s April 10 post on X also aroused interest. The post included a photo of her holding her baby on a plane, with a caption saying she had flown on the same plane to Washington a year earlier, where she interviewed Qin.

At first, it was unclear whether the plane highlighted in her post was a commercial or private jet. But photos later posted by Fu on social media confirmed it was a private jet,

According to FAA records, the Gulfstream G650ER N333GW is equipped with Rolls-Royce engines and seats 22. Its current owner is listed as trustee of Bank of Utah in Salt Lake City. An X user named itweetcatsndogs also discovered the connection between the plane and Sino Airlines, an aircraft leasing and operating company based in Beijing and Hong Kong.

Online flight tracking records show that the plane took off from Los Angeles, California, and landed in Beijing on April 11 before heading to Hong Kong.

Dreyer told VOA she found it “definitely unusual” for Fu to fly on a private jet to work when she interviewed Qin and when she and her son flew back to Beijing and/or Hong Kong last April.

“If Ms. Fu was not independently wealthy, someone or some people would be subsidizing her,” Dreher said, noting that Fu’s connections were likely above Qin’s pay grade.

“There’s definitely something fishy about this story,” she told VOA.

CNN said in an investigative report last September that it had spoken to people who knew Fu, who said Fu’s mother was a teacher in her hometown of Chongqing and her father worked in a family. Management positions in production plants. Experts interviewed by CNN also questioned Fu’s identity because it was reported that the beachside mansion Fu lives in Los Angeles is listed for rent in 2021 at $55,000 per month.

Fu admitted in her Weibo post that despite being surrounded by luxury, she still felt lonely and told her fans that she started taking antidepressants in January 2023 and posted on March 14, 2023 that she had taken Holding a bottle of prescription pills, she flew out of Los Angeles less than a month ago

In 2016, a few years before Qin disappeared, Fu made headlines in the UK for making a large donation to Cambridge University.

“I don’t know what’s going on there, and I can’t explain it,” admits Inkster, who is now a consultant at the International Institute for China Strategy in London and directs geostrategy and intelligence-related analysis at Indo Economics.

“But it’s clear that someone provided the funding for this. Fu Xiaotian couldn’t have done it himself,” Inkster said.

Another thing that has baffled observers is that Churchill College, Cambridge, went to great lengths to name a garden after Fu. The college’s website said the move was in conjunction with “a series of generous gifts” that Fu promised in 2016.

The commitments came during Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping’s state visit to the UK in October 2015, during which China pledged significant investment in the UK. Xi Jinping’s wife Peng Liyuan accompanied him.

Provisions in the new law

Another interesting twist. On February 27, the same day China announced Mr. Qin’s resignation as a member of the National People’s Congress, state media announced a revised law on the protection of state secrets. According to Chinese media reports, the changes came under pressure from some members of the National People’s Congress Standing Committee, who were concerned that individuals might lose their “rights and interests.”

Article 43 stipulates: “If the legitimate rights and interests of persons who know state secrets are affected due to the reason of keeping state secrets, they shall be given corresponding ranks and treatment or be given corresponding compensation.” nation”.

At the same time, Article 21 of the Law stipulates that the scope of knowledge of state secrets should be “limited to the smallest possible scope.” Furthermore, “information should be retained with designated individuals whenever possible.”

Dreyer, who teaches at the University of Miami in Florida, found the timing of Qin’s resignation and the formation of this particular provision “questionable,” in her words, and wondered whether the provisions might be relevant to Qin’s case even in the absence of Direct reference.

“Except during the Mao Zedong era [Zedong] named Lin Biao [as his successor in the official party constitution]”No one was named in the legislation,” she said.