‘Not usually a target’: Rumours run wild as Xi’s top diplomats vanish
Chinese diplomat Liu Jianchao’s star was on the rise. A fluent English speaker, he was seen in the West as a moderate, convivial antidote to the era of hard-nosed “wolf warrior” Chinese diplomacy.
His role as boss of the Communist Party’s International Department, responsible for diplomatic outreach with overseas political parties, added to speculation he was a foreign minister in waiting and had the trust of President Xi Jinping.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (left) with Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Moscow in May.Credit: AP
Then rumours that Liu had been detained began circulating.
They appeared to have substance when The Wall Street Journal reported last week that he had been “taken away by authorities for questioning” after returning from an overseas work trip in late July. His deputy, Sun Haiyan, a former ambassador to Singapore, had also been detained for questioning, Reuters reported on Friday, though she soon reappeared at a public event.
“It is very significant, and quite surprising,” said Dylan Loh, an assistant professor at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University and author of the book China’s Rising Foreign Ministry.
“The foreign policy apparatus in China is not usually a target of purges or probes. There are really just a handful of very solid, experienced senior foreign diplomats.”
Chinese diplomat Liu Jianchao delivers a speech at an event hosted by the Australia-China Relations Institute at the University of Technology Sydney in 2023. Credit: Louie Douvis
Liu’s apparent detention – unconfirmed by the Chinese government – is considered especially unusual because it has come so soon after the removal of former foreign minister Qin Gang, also a Xi loyalist, in 2023. There were rumours he’d had an affair with a high-profile Chinese reporter while in the US.
For all the opacity that has come to shroud Chinese elite politics on Xi’s watch, as lines of communication have narrowed and leaks have dried up under his tightening grip on power, intrigue, rumour and rampant speculation have never dimmed.
Rather they have been turbocharged by the scale of Xi’s anti-corruption campaign, under which millions of civilians and military officials have been investigated and removed since he came to power in 2012. This includes two former defence ministers, Li Shangfu and Wei Fenghe, who were expelled from the party last year after being accused by the leadership of taking bribes.
Many analysts agree that corruption has been a genuine problem inside the Chinese Communist Party, particularly in parts of the People’s Liberation Army responsible for procurement.
Former Chinese foreign minister Qin Gang was removed form the role in 2023.Credit: Reuters
But since Xi’s consolidation of power in October 2022, when he secured an unprecedented third term as president, top officials he handpicked – who were previously thought to enjoy his protection – have become targets.
“It’s as much about power, control, preventing alternate power bases from forming, and ensuring that interpersonal networks don’t develop to a degree that Xi Jinping personally, and the party as an organisation, is challenged,” said Drew Thompson, a former Pentagon official overseeing China policy and now a senior fellow at Nanyang.
Some China watchers spend their careers trying to peer into the “black box” of the country’s elite powerbrokers, searching for splinters of light that might offer clues as to the policy shifts and power plays.
Increasingly this has become a process of deduction, involving poring over government mouthpieces such as the People’s Daily for mentions of keywords and officials, and scrutinising reports of high-profile events to see who attended – and who did not.
Former defence minister Li Shangfu was expelled from the Chinese Communist Party on corruption grounds last year.Credit: AP
This can be a highly speculative exercise, and it can take many months before a top-ranked official’s removal is officially confirmed by formal party channels.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry was contacted for comment.
If he has indeed been detained, Liu is the latest senior official to be felled in Xi’s sweeping crackdown, which recently included the ousting of two top officers – both Xi allies – from the Central Military Commission (CMC), the party’s supreme military decision-making body.
Admiral Miao Hua, who was in charge of ensuring political loyalty in the armed forces, was formally removed from the CMC in June for “suspected serious violations of discipline and law”, a party euphemism for corruption.
Another former defence minister, Wei Fenghe, was also purged from his position.Credit: AP
CMC vice-chair He Weidong, the No.2 military official behind Xi and also a member of the Communist Party’s powerful Politburo, hasn’t been seen in public since March and is suspected to be under investigation.
Their career demises are notable not just for their seniority, but because they were part of the “Fujian clique” of Xi loyalists who had known him since his days as a local official and then governor of Fujian between 1985 and 2002.
The CMC has been halved since 2023; just three generals now directly report to Xi. This has triggered conjecture among China scholars about what Xi’s narrowing circle of trust says about his confidence in the military leaders to oversea the PLA’s combat readiness, particularly in line with the party’s ultimate goal of “unifying” Taiwan with the mainland.
For now, the PLA’s modernisation efforts are still proceeding apace, Thompson said, as China pursues the largest military expansion by any country since World War II.
What’s harder to measure is “the effect on morale, particularly in those higher command units”, he said.
The purges have also fuelled speculation that a factional power struggle is being waged against Xi by his enemies in the PLA.
The speculation reached fever pitch this year as rumours spread of Xi’s imminent downfall – mostly among CCP critics in diaspora communities and in the Falun Gong-backed publication The Epoch Times – before being picked up by some Western media outlets.
This theory was built around Xi’s two-week public absence in late May to early June and his decision to skip the BRICS summit in Brazil in July for the first time in 12 years.
General He Weidong, the vice chairman of China’s Central Military Commission, pictured at the 14th National People’s Congress in Beijing in March 2023. He hasn’t been seen in public since March this year.Credit: Getty Images
These rumours, rejected by many analysts, took a credibility blow when Xi resumed normal programming with a string of high-profile events in July – holding the Central Urban Work Conference, meeting Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, and hosting Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in Beijing.
“He has been very much in the limelight [since the urban conference]. He was given pride of place on the front pages of the People’s Daily and even the PLA Daily,” said Dr Willy Lam, a 40-year veteran of researching Chinese politics and senior fellow at Washington-based think tank the Jamestown Foundation.
Lam believes a factional struggle is afoot, but that Xi will maintain an unassailable grip on power in the lead-up to the party’s 21st National Congress in 2027, when many analysts expect he will seek a fourth term.
The Lowy Institute’s Richard McGregor takes the view that wild, uncorroborated rumours about Xi’s leadership should be “taken with a dump truck full of salt”. Others argue that the PLA purges of Xi’s allies and enemies should be seen as a consolidation of his power, rather than a weakening of it.
Loh said the rumour mill typically cranked up around this time – two years out from the party congress, which formally determines the party’s top leaders – when there is increasing motive for those who might want to undermine China’s leaders.
“I do not think there’s any serious attempt under way to unseat or challenge Xi, and my own view is that he’s still very much comfortable in this position of power and is still very much in charge,” Loh said.
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