High-level disappearances deepen China’s political black hole

The sacking of a top diplomat and mysterious disappearance of a defense minister have raised fresh questions around President Xi Jinping’s increasingly opaque decision-making, experts say.

U.S. officials believe Defense Minister Li Shangfu is under investigation and has been relieved of his duties just six months after his appointment, the Financial Times reported last week.

In July, Foreign Minister Qin Gang — long seen as a close ally of Xi’s — was removed from office without explanation.

Later that month China announced that former navy commander Wang Houbin would take over as the new head of the Chinese military’s Rocket Force, as media reports emerged of a corruption probe.

Wang’s predecessor Li Yuchao had not been seen in weeks, and state media offered no explanation for his removal.

“As Shakespeare wrote in ‘Hamlet,’ ‘Something is rotten in the state of Denmark’,” U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel said on X last week, adding that Li “hasn’t been seen or heard from” in weeks.

“President Xi’s cabinet lineup is now resembling Agatha Christie’s novel ‘And Then There Were None.’ First, Foreign Minister Qin Gang goes missing, then the Rocket Force commanders go missing, and now Defense Minister Li Shangfu hasn’t been seen in public for two weeks,” Emanuel wrote in a separate post.

Sun Yun, senior fellow and director of the China Program at the Stimson Center in Washington, told AFP: “It does say a lot about the unpredictability of China’s personnel decisions and domestic politics today.”

Since rising to the top of the Communist

Party in 2012, Xi has consolidated control within the government and is believed to have promoted close political allies to the country’s top posts.

“If it turns out Li is also demoted, it would not be a positive image for Xi,” Sun said.

“Both Qin and Li were selected by him.”

Fighting alleged corruption has long been a central theme of Xi’s rule, with the Chinese leader waging a sweeping campaign since taking office that critics claim helps him purge political rivals.

“Xi Jinping began purging top personnel in the military and security forces very early in his time in power, and has continued to do so through to the present,” Sheena Chestnut Greitens, an expert on authoritarian politics in East Asia who teaches at the University of Texas at Austin, told AFP.

The Chinese leader views corruption as a “fundamental threat,” she said, “because it makes people loyal to personal profits, rather than to the Party.”

But while early corruption probes targeted officials seen as a challenge to Xi’s rule — populist upstarts or allies of ex-leaders, for example — recent investigations appear to be hitting closer to home.