{"id":12495,"date":"2023-09-16T11:33:25","date_gmt":"2023-09-16T11:33:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/business\/then-there-were-two-disappearance-of-second-chinese-minister-sparks-speculation\/"},"modified":"2023-09-16T11:33:25","modified_gmt":"2023-09-16T11:33:25","slug":"then-there-were-two-disappearance-of-second-chinese-minister-sparks-speculation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/?p=12495","title":{"rendered":"Then there were two: disappearance of second Chinese minister sparks speculation"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Chinese defence minister Li Shangfu told a China-Africa security forum in Beijing last month that the world was entering a new period of \u201cinstability\u201d.<\/p>\n

Just over two weeks later, officials and experts outside China are raising questions about the durability of Chinese president Xi Jinping\u2019s cabinet, after Li became the second high-profile minister to disappear with little or no explanation from public view in less than two months. <\/p>\n

US officials told the Financial Times they believed Li had been stripped of his duties in a pattern that seemed to follow that of China\u2019s former foreign minister, Qin Gang, who mysteriously disappeared in June and was officially replaced a month later. His fate is unknown. <\/p>\n

\u201cAs Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet, \u2018Something is rotten in the state of Denmark\u2019,\u201d US ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel posted on Thursday on X, formerly Twitter. <\/p>\n

A week earlier Emanuel wrote that China\u2019s government was \u201cnow resembling Agatha Christie\u2019s novel And Then There Were None<\/em>\u201d. <\/p>\n

While senior Chinese officials are periodically purged for corruption, analysts say two cabinet ministers have not disappeared in this way in recent decades, especially in such quick succession.<\/p>\n

Their situation \u2014 which comes just six months after Xi announced his new cabinet as part of the inauguration of his third-five year term \u2014 adds to perceptions that decision-making is becoming even less transparent at a moment when China is struggling to rekindle domestic and foreign investor confidence in its struggling economy. <\/p>\n

In contrast to the removal of previous senior figures, Li and Qin were both picked by Xi, making it more difficult for the president to deflect blame for their failures.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very unusual. I could not have imagined in such a short period of time that two very important ministers would disappear and without any information,\u201d said Alfred Wu, associate professor\u00a0at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in the National University of Singapore.<\/p>\n

Although the defence minister wields little power, he serves as the People\u2019s Liberation Army\u2019s face to the outside world. An aerospace engineer with little international exposure, Li was confirmed as defence minister in March after joining the Central Military Commission, China\u2019s highest military body, last October.<\/p>\n

<\/source><\/source>\"\"<\/picture>
The fate of China\u2019s former foreign minister Qin Gang, who vanished in June, is unknown<\/span> \u00a9 Amr Nabil\/AP<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Internationally, Li\u2019s appointment was controversial from the start. In 2018, the US placed sanctions on him for engaging in transactions with individuals affiliated with Russia\u2019s defence or intelligence sectors. Li was director of an agency that planned, developed and procured weapons for the PLA at the time.<\/p>\n

China refused to let Li meet US defence secretary Lloyd Austin while the sanctions prevailed, complicating the countries\u2019 military ties.<\/p>\n

US officials have said Li is being investigated for corruption, but one said it was unclear whether it was related to his time in charge of the department responsible for developing and procuring weapons.<\/p>\n

In July, the Central Military Commission, which Xi chairs, announced a corruption probe into equipment procurement going back almost six years. The following month Xi removed the two top generals at the PLA\u2019s Rocket Force, which oversees the country\u2019s missiles and nuclear weapons, in the biggest shake-up of the military leadership in a decade. Li was not named in those probes.<\/p>\n

While many analysts view Xi\u2019s anti-corruption campaigns as politically motivated, one US official said graft was endemic in the PLA, inhibiting the president\u2019s ambitions of turning it into a force capable of tasks such as subduing Taiwan. \u201cIt [corruption] has had a profound effect on what they\u2019re able to do, and how they do it,\u201d the official said.<\/p>\n

Officially, China has said nothing about Li\u2019s whereabouts. The foreign ministry on Friday said it was \u201cnot familiar with the situation\u201d. Reuters on Thursday cited Vietnamese officials saying that Li cancelled a meeting last week because of a \u201chealth condition\u201d \u2014 the same reason given by the foreign ministry early in Qin\u2019s absence.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnyone who [has been] publicly claimed [as having] health issues will never be healthy again in the future,\u201d said one user on Weibo, China\u2019s Twitter-like social media service, in one of the few uncensored posts on Li.<\/p>\n

While no mention was made of Li on official media, analysts said the rapid purges of the two ministers indicated troubles beneath the surface in Xi\u2019s government.<\/p>\n

Lyle Morris, a former Pentagon China official now at the Asia Society Policy Institute, said the investigation was a \u201cbig deal\u201d that raised questions about the vetting process, since Xi has a large team that studies candidates for senior government positions.<\/p>\n

He said the situation was embarrassing for Xi and reflected a weakness in the Chinese system in terms of instability, but cautioned it could also be a sign of the president\u2019s power.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe this is Xi inserting himself in a system that is highly corrupt, so in some paradoxical way it shows strength with his ability to take someone down so early in his tenure,\u201d Morris said.<\/p>\n

<\/source><\/source>\"\"<\/picture>
Xi Jinping has consolidated his power by appointing loyalists to senior positions <\/span> \u00a9 Mark R Cristino\/EPA<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Xi was already facing increasing policy challenges after his zero-Covid strategy pushed the economy into a nosedive last year from which it has struggled to emerge, with growth slowing in the second quarter. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere is speculation his top aides are not aligning themselves enough with him so he probably is using this [the crackdowns] to enhance further loyalty to his leadership. Not only from the civilian side but from the military side,\u201d Yu Ping, a China expert and a former fellow at NYU\u2019s US-Asia Law Institute.<\/p>\n

The risk was that as Xi consolidated his power \u2014 at the 20th Chinese Communist party (CCP) congress last year, he installed loyalists to the top leadership positions and excluded rival factions \u2014 such apparent purges would become more regular, said NUS\u2019s Wu.<\/p>\n

Officials would compete to show their loyalty and try to expose rivals\u2019 weaknesses, he said. In a paper on tensions between Xi\u2019s top officials, Guoguang Wu, senior research scholar at the Center on China\u2019s Economy and Institutions, Stanford University, said that these disputes accounted for many of China\u2019s contradictory policies, such as trying to attract external investors while conducting national security raids on foreign consultants.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the supreme leader controls everything, ironically, the CCP regime becomes less stable politically and more inconsistent in terms of governance,\u201d Wu wrote in The China Leadership Monitor magazine this month.<\/p>\n

The other risk from the sudden apparent purges of ministers is that they might further disempower other senior officials, making them less inclined to take bold steps to solve the country\u2019s problems, analysts said. Foreign countries will also wonder whether it is worth engaging deeply with cabinet ministers, knowing they lack clout. <\/p>\n

World leaders \u201cwill be guessing about whether they really need to talk to [a given minister] or if that person will last very long\u201d, said Yu.<\/p>\n

With additional reporting by Kathrin Hille in New York<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Read the full article here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chinese defence minister Li Shangfu told a China-Africa security forum in Beijing last month that the world was entering a new period of \u201cinstability\u201d. Just over two weeks later, officials and experts outside China are raising questions about the durability of Chinese president Xi Jinping\u2019s cabinet, after Li became the second high-profile minister to disappear […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-12495","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-business"},"yoast_head":"\nThen there were two: disappearance of second Chinese minister sparks speculation | Prosfunds<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Chinese defence minister Li Shangfu told a China-Africa security forum in Beijing last month that the world was entering a new period of\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link 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