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By PHELIM KINE
with STUART LAU
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Hi, China Watchers. Today we look toward the one-year anniversary of the disappearance of China's now-former foreign minister Qin Gang by unpacking some of its unanswered questions, examine the value of "strategic empathy" in evaluating Chinese geostrategy and profile a book that parses Beijing's often fickle embrace of the international legal order.
Let's get to it. — Phelim.
Whatever happened to Qin Gang?
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The official portrait of Qin Gang still hangs on the wall of the Chinese embassy in Washington | China Watcher |
Tuesday marks the first anniversary of the last public appearance of China's now-former Foreign Minister Qin Gang. The Foreign Ministry initially attributed Qin's disappearance to health problems and then went silent on his fate.
Fall from grace: It was a stunning reversal for a novice diplomat whose ties to Chinese leader Xi Jinping helped vault him to the role of ambassador to the U.S. in 2021. He then rose in the ranks to Foreign Minister just over a year later. China's top legislative body replaced Qin as foreign minister with veteran diplomat Wang Yi in July. And it stripped Qin of his post as state councilor in October, though he remains on the last updated list of CCP Central Committee members.
Rumors abound: Qin's absence spawned a lurid rumor mill that claimed he'd had an extramarital affair with an alleged British intelligence agent. There were also whispers that he'd either been executed, had died by suicide or was tortured to death.
The femme fatale theory: "I am convinced that Qin Gang’s [alleged] paramour Fu Xiaotian was involved in espionage for a foreign power…[but] it is impossible to know if Qin was simply a victim of a honey trap operation or was a witting partner," said Dennis Wilder, former National Security Council director for China and senior fellow at Georgetown's Initiative for U.S.-China Dialogue on Global Issues.
Not dead yet? If Qin can prove that he was unaware of his alleged mistress' rumored spy ties "he may have a case for leniency," said Victor Shih, an expert in Chinese elite politics and the Ho Miu Lam chair in China and Pacific Relations at UC San Diego's School of Global Policy and Strategy. But the official silence on Qin's status likely reflects indecision among China's senior leadership about how to close his case, Shih said.
Systemic paranoia: The fact that Qin's ties to Xi haven't (yet) saved him may tell us more about China's authoritarian system than Qin's possible missteps. Qin's true offense was falling afoul of "an increasingly paranoid and insular regime where ideological purity reigns supreme — wherever Qin is now, rest assured it is not China’s version of Club Med," said Craig Singleton, senior China fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
Beijing's not telling: You can still find more than one thousand documents referencing Qin on the Chinese Foreign Ministry website, though his former colleagues won't discuss his current status. The Chinese embassy in Washington didn't respond to a request for comment on Qin's whereabouts.
Tremble and obey: That ambiguity breeds fear among senior officials that "benefits Xi Jinping,"said Joseph Torigian, an assistant professor at American University's School of International Service and an expert on elite power dynamics in authoritarian regimes. "If you're not quite sure where the [red] lines are … it behooves you to think about the lines in a way that is as safe as possible," Torigian said.
Teflon autocrat: Speculation that Qin's downfall would damage Xi as Qin's political patron has proven false. "There were probably some critics within the system who tried to use [Qin's fall] to say 'maybe we were too premature to promote this person,'" said Nirav Patel, former deputy assistant secretary of State in the Obama administration and now the CEO of U.S.-based The Asia Group consultancy. Instead, China's economic and foreign policy settings reflect "a doubling down of Xi Jinping's greatest hits," Patel said.
THREE MINUTES WITH…
Rush Doshi stepped down as the National Security Council's deputy senior director for China and Taiwan in March. Doshi now splits his time as an assistant professor of security studies at Georgetown University and director of the Council on Foreign Relations' new China Strategy Initiative, which launches Monday. China Watcher dug into the details.
Responses have been edited for length and clarity.
How will the China Strategy Initiative differ from existing think tank China programs?
We're focused on not just foreign policy but domestic policy. On the key questions that go to the heart of U.S- China strategy … in the context of what the U.S. should do to compete. We want to better understand what China’s activities are around the world, and what that indicates not just for U.S. policy, but also for our assessment of China’s intentions. And there’s going to be a big piece of research on what it means practically to manage competition. Not just what Washington has to do, but also what Beijing has to do, and what others around the world might have to do in their own relationships with China.
What does the bipartisan consensus on China look like to you?
A shared diagnosis of China’s intentions and ambitions. When I worked on my book it was a bit controversial to say that China might seek to displace American order, first in the Indo-Pacific and then globally. It’s more accepted now. It’s also become more obvious in the way that China talks and acts. And there's a set of shared views on what the United States needs to do to make itself more competitive — fix the defense industrial base, figure out defense technology innovation, fix American critical infrastructure, figure out industrial policy approaches. You don’t see that on other foreign policy issues in the U.S.
Has China's geopolitical power peaked?
Evan Medeiros has a fantastic piece in the last issue of Foreign Affairs on this question, and I agree with him. I’m not a big believer in the idea that China’s geopolitical power is fundamentally peaking. But in the Chinese system, even if it were true, they probably couldn't acknowledge to themselves that their power was peaking. They have to have a narrative that China is doing well. The real question is: What does China think about its own power position? And I’m not sure they agree with some Western critics who think that their best days are behind them. That kind of strategic empathy is a critical part of any [China] policy and analysis.
TRANSLATING WASHINGTON
— AMBASSADOR: FENTANYL CRISIS 'NOT CHINA'S PROBLEM': China's ambassador to the U.S., Xie Feng, has signaled a go-slow approach toward addressing China's role in the U.S. opioid overdose epidemic. That crisis "is not China’s problem, nor was it caused by China," Xie told the director of the White House's Office of National Drug Control Policy, Rahul Gupta, in a recent meeting, per Chinese state media reporting Wednesday. Chinese exporters ship precursor chemicals needed to produce fentanyl-like compounds to Mexican cartels. Those syndicates then process the chemicals into synthetic opioids that end up on the streets of U.S. cities.
Xie suggested that collaboration hinges on improvements in the wider U.S.-China relationship. The U.S. should "earnestly address our concerns and create a favorable atmosphere for cooperation," Xie said of the meeting in a post on X. Despite the creation of a bilateral Counter Narcotics Working Group in January, Beijing isn't doing enough to prosecute "those who are selling chemicals and equipment used to make fentanyl" and disrupt "illegal illicit financing networks" who fund that trade, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in April. Gupta's office didn't respond to a request for comment.
— STATE APPROVES $360M TAIWAN ARMS SALE: The State Department has approved new arms sales to Taiwan valued at $360 million. The weapons systems include 291 ALTIUS 600M-V loitering attack drones costing $300 million and a Switchblade 300 Anti-Personnel and Anti-Armor Loitering Missile System valued at $60 million, State's Defense Security Cooperation Agency said in dual statements Wednesday. The weapon systems will "enhance our ability to meet current and future threats," Taiwan's Defense Ministry said in a post on X. But Beijing isn't pleased; The sales "send a gravely wrong message to 'Taiwan independence' separatist forces," said Chinese embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu on Wednesday.
— PENTAGON CONDEMNS CHINA'S 'RECKLESS' NAVAL MOVES: China's increasingly aggressive incursions into Philippine waters of the South China Sea earned a sharp rebuke from the Pentagon on Tuesday. "This kind of behavior is provocative, its reckless, its unnecessary … [and] could lead to something bigger and more violent," Pentagon spokesperson Pat Ryder told reporters Tuesday. That criticism follows two incidents adjacent to Manila's military outpost on the Second Thomas Shoal: a collision on Monday between a China Coast Guard vessel and a Philippine ship and the seizure of two Philippine re-supply boats by Chinese authorities on Tuesday. But Beijing remains defiant, with Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian on Wednesday saying that Tuesday's incident was "professional and restrained and aimed at stopping the illegal 'resupply mission.'"
TRANSLATING EUROPE
GERMAN TOP OFFICIAL HEADS TO BEIJING FOR DAMAGE-CONTROL TOUR: German economy minister and vice chancellor Robert Habeck arrives in Beijing tomorrow for his first visit to China during his tenure, amid worsening uncertainty facing German-Chinese trade ties. Habeck will meet Chinese Premier Li Qiang before visiting Shanghai and Hangzhou over the weekend, Berlin Playbook's Julia Wacket writes in.
Habeck's high-stakes visit comes as the European Union and China are engaged in an escalating trade war, with the EU slapping tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles and Beijing launching an anti-dumping probe in EU pork products. Habeck's team made clear to journalists that the EU tariffs would not be up for negotiation when he meets Li and other Chinese officials — nor will the auto industry executives be part of Habeck's business delegation.
“The experience of recent years is that, in critical areas at least, a high level of dependency on just one country, with which there is also a certain competitive or systemic rivalry, can become a problem,” Habeck said yesterday in Berlin. “The German economy has fully understood this.”
DUTCH PORK EXPORTERS TURN AWAY FROM CHINA: Dutch pork exporters are looking into finding alternative buyers after China launched what they see as a politically motivated anti-dumping probe. Dutch agrifood exports to China fell by 20 percent last year, due partly to reduced demand for pork.
"There is no dumping of Dutch pork on the Chinese market … The anti-dumping investigation is therefore primarily a politically driven instrument," the Netherlands' Pig Farming Producers' Organization said in a statement to POLITICO's Alessandro Ford. "Dutch meat producers will have to find another destination for pig ears, snouts, legs and tails. It will be partly possible to sell them to markets with consumers who appreciate these high-quality Dutch products."
CHINA-RUSSIA TIES IN SPOTLIGHT: European leaders are right to maintain a dialogue with China and should continue pressuringXi to use his leverage in discussions with Russia about Ukraine. But until China does so, letting Beijing take on a major role in the peace process risks legitimizing the invasion of Ukraine, argue Viking Bohman, Patrik Andersson and Hugo von Essen in this opinion piece on POLITICO Europe.
HOT FROM THE CHINA WATCHERSPHERE
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— BEIJING BLASTS CODEL'S DALAI LAMA VISIT: House Foreign Affairs Committee chair Michael McCaul (R-Texas) and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) led a congressional delegation to meet with the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala, India on Wednesday — and Beijing is furious. U.S. officials should "have no contact with the Dalai group in any form," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said in advance of the meeting on Tuesday. McCaul clapped back, saying in a statement: "Our delegation received a letter from the Chinese Communist Party warning us not to come here — they repeated their false claim that Tibet has been a part of China since the 13th Century."
Beijing is also fuming over the Resolve Tibet Act, co-sponsored by McCaul and Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), which passed the House last week. It requires the State Department to 'directly counter" Chinese disinformation about Tibet. "The U.S. must not sign the bill into law," Lin said.
— REPORT: CHINA'S IMPERFECT MILITARY AI EFFORTS: China's People's Liberation Army faces hurdles in integrating artificial intelligence systems into its warfighting platforms, according to a report released Tuesday by Georgetown University's Center for Security and Emerging Technology. The PLA's "insufficiently robust military standards and testing and evaluation practices … may complicate China's path toward carrying out AI-enabled systems warfare," the report said.
HEADLINES
War on the Rocks: The South China Sea dog that hasn't barked…yet
The Spectator: Inside China's 'soft siege' of Taiwan
Foreign Affairs: Why China Is Sabotaging Ukraine
VOA:Google AI Gemini parrots China's propaganda
HEADS UP
— REVVING UP FOR RIMPAC: The U.S. 3rd Fleet commander Vice Adm. John Wade will lead the biennial Rim of the Pacific naval exercise which starts Wednesday. The exercise — which will occur around and on the Hawaiian islands — involves 25,000 personnel from 29 countries deployed across 40 ships, three submarines and more than 150 aircraft, the Pacific Fleet said in a statement.
ONE BOOK, THREE QUESTIONS
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Recentering the World | Cambridge University Press |
The Book: Recentering the World: China and the Transformation of International Law
The Author: Ryan Mitchell is an associate professor of law at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Responses have been edited for length and clarity.
What is the most important takeaway from your book?
International law has played a huge role in shaping modern China, and Beijing has contributed to many of the great transformations of the international legal order. Chinese legal scholars were a key part of discussions between 1900-1945 that eventually outlawed war and restricted countries' use of force. Chinese international lawyers also helped to define a “Third World” perspective on international law, emphasizing countries’ rights to overturn unfair colonial treaty obligations.
What was the most surprising thing you learned while writing this book?
Beijing is famously preoccupied with sovereignty — think its claims on Taiwan. But maximizing state prestige has also been a key goal whenever China has taken positions on matters of international law. The country’s official legal representatives have at times emphasized the role and power of international institutions such as the United Nations over national authority to try to boost China’s influence and status at a global level.
How has China's 'often conflicted role in international law' changed under Xi Jinping?
Xi’s rise has produced a bolder assertion of China’s status as a 'great power.' Under Xi, China has promoted its preferred standards in areas such as trade, human rights and the environment. But Beijing is also more willing to challenge international law where Beijing sees it conflicting with China's perception of its prestige or security. You can see that in Beijing's refusal to accept the 2016 UNCLOS ruling rejecting its South China Sea territorial claims. Beijing also wields informal trade sanctions against countries that take actions it deems unfriendly. Countries that Beijing sees as too cozy with Taiwan — most recently Guatemala — have reaped sharp reprisals from China.
Got a book to recommend? Tell me about it at pkine@politico.com.Thanks to: Heidi Vogt, Rosie Perper, Lara Seligman, Julia Wacket, Alessandro Ford and digital producers Emma Cordover and Dato Parulava. Do you have tips? Chinese-language stories we might have missed? Would you like to contribute to China Watcher or comment on this week’s items? Email us at pkine@politico.com and slau@politico.com
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