Stony silence over Qin Gang saga does China’s reputation no favours
- If Beijing had come clean about the reasons for Qin’s dismissal and been willing to address media questions, it might have incurred nothing more than embarrassment
- Stonewalling on the issue has instead damaged China’s image as a responsible world power
In the ensuing two weeks, speculation about Qin’s whereabouts has become more intense but China’s state media remains conspicuously silent.
Often, for a few seconds, Mao would pretend to look at and reshuffle her prepared notes or ask a reporter to repeat the question before giving her standard reply: “I don’t have any information to offer”, or “I have no knowledge of that issue”.
On July 17, when asked to confirm whether Qin was still the foreign minister, Mao told the reporter to check the ministry’s website which listed Qin as the foreign minister and said she did not have any new information. So, a Foreign Ministry spokesperson could not directly confirm the foreign minister was still the foreign minister, and a reporter had to check the ministry’s website to confirm he was?
Also, Mao’s exchanges with foreign reporters over Qin were all excluded from the readouts in the ministry’s website, keeping up the charade that “China’s diplomatic activities are moving forward normally”.
On Friday, the ministry quietly began to reinstate references to Qin which were erased on Tuesday, apparently because of intense media scrutiny. But the damage is done.
Equally counterproductive is the official stonewalling on why Qin was removed. Speculation has run amok in the absence of official explanation, with suggestions that his dismissal was politically motivated and or that he was implicated in an extramarital affair. This could be an acute embarrassment for China’s top leadership. It is also possible that he is unwell.
The decision to replace Qin with Wang was meant to signal stability and continuity of China’s foreign policies. Wang was China’s foreign minister from March 2013 to December 2022. At the end of his tenure, Wang was elevated to become director of office of the Communist Party’s foreign affairs commission – making him the highest-ranking diplomat in China. The commission is headed by Xi himself.
Having said that, speculation surrounding the saga has damaged China’s reputation and image as a responsible world power. China might be treating the whole saga as a domestic affair, which is true in a certain sense. But, as the world’s second-largest economy and a rising power at odds with the West over almost everything from values to technology, the rest of the world has a valid interest in China’s decision-making process.
In Qin’s case, if the government had come clean with the reasons for Qin’s dismissal and been willing to address questions from the media, it might have incurred nothing more than embarrassment. By stonewalling on the issue, China has suffered much more than embarrassment.
Wang Xiangwei is a former editor-in-chief of the South China Morning Post. He now teaches journalism at Baptist University