Xi Jinping’s pick for foreign minister, Qin Gang, dismissed over love child

Senior communist officials have been told Qin Gang was removed because of ‘lifestyle issues’, a euphemism for his affair with a TV host.

Qin Gang holds up China's constitution on March 7 in Beijing. Picture: Getty Images

Xi Jinping’s pick for foreign minister, Qin Gang, was dismissed after only seven months because Beijing worried a love child with a Chinese television journalist made him vulnerable to American intelligence agencies.

Senior Chinese officials have been told Mr Qin, 57, was abruptly removed from his job as China’s top diplomat because of “lifestyle issues”, a party euphemism for his widely discussed affair with Phoenix television host Fu Xiaotian.

“The probe found that Qin had engaged in an extramarital affair that led to the birth of a child in the US,” the Wall Street Journal reported, citing sources familiar with the internal communist party investigation.

“The investigation is continuing with Qin’s co-operation … and it is now focusing on whether the affair or other conduct by Qin might have compromised China’s national security.”

The salacious dismissal is hugely embarrassing for Xi, who had overseen Qin’s unusually fast promotion. It has exposed huge gaps in Beijing’s vetting process, a problem underlined by the additional recent removal of China’s Defence Minister Li Shangfu.

The twin disappearances of two of Beijing’s public faces to the world have given rare insight into the fractious state of elite Chinese politics.

Before being promoted to be the Chinese Foreign Minister last December, Qin served as China’s ambassador in Washington, Beijing’s most important posting and an indication of Xi’s trust in him. Gossip about a love-child born in America being Qin’s undoing has swirled for months.

While Beijing did not comment on the Wall Street Journal report, Chinese propaganda corroborated them while suggesting Washington may have played a role in the affair.

“The reason why Qin Gang was dismissed is because he had a lover and a child born in the United States … Moreover, the lover may be a spy for the CIA,” wrote one Chinese propaganda account.

Qin has not been seen in public since June. Two months before that, the Chinese television journalist believed to be his mistress posted a cryptic message on social media saying she was flying from Los Angeles to an unspecified location on what appeared to be an otherwise empty private jet.

Last time flying alone with this aircraft was from LA to DC for a work visit, and that both happily and sadly turned to be the very last interview I did with Talk with World Leaders. This time to fly out with this aircraft was also from LA, but with precious baby son Er-Kin🥹 pic.twitter.com/C8izukrkzj

— Fu Xiaotian 傅曉田 (@xiaotianphoenix) April 10, 2023

Her post included a photo of her interviewing Qin a year earlier in China’s Washington embassy. It also included a photo of her “precious baby son Er-Kin”, a name which in Chinese sounds like “Son of Qin”, as noted by Philip Cunningham, who tracks Chinese propaganda.

Both her American or Chinese social media accounts have been silent since that post in late April, when the party’s investigation into Qin’s “lifestyle issues” began. She is believed to now be Beijing.

Earlier posts indicate she was raising her child in a mansion on the southern Californian coast, reportedly a rental costing $US50,000 a month. There are unconfirmed reports that she also had an apartment near China’s ambassadorial residence in Washington.

The scandal comes as Xi’s worries about the loyalty of his officials who deal with foreigners and during a period of intense geopolitical competition with America.

Some Biden officials have gloated about the rare insight into China’s baroque elite politics, which in all but the most extraordinary cases are kept secret from those outside the senior ranks of the party.

“President Xi‘s cabinet line-up is now resembling Agatha Christie’s novel And Then There Were None,” America’s Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel recently wrote on social media.

Beijing has not commented on the disappearance of General Li, 65, but analysts believe it is related to an ongoing investigation into failures in China’s rocket development program.

Before being appointed defence minister, Li served as the head of the PLA’s main department for procuring and developing weapons, a position with a long history of having the “worst corruption” inside the Chinese military, according to former US officials.

Two senior officials overseeing the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force, which controls the country’s strategic missiles, were both dismissed in July.

Beijing has not given a reason for their dismissal, but analysts suspect they were also subject to a corruption investigation.