[Jimbuna]

Is Qin Gang’s a victim of the Putin syndrome or is he simply guilty of having an affair?

China’s foreign minister has not been seen in nearly a month, leading to speculation over his whereabouts in a country where the private lives of senior officials are shrouded in secrecy.

Qin Gang’s last public appearance was a meeting with visiting Russian, Sri Lankan and Vietnamese officials on June 25.

Since then, he has missed a series of high-profile diplomatic meetings at home and abroad, including a gathering of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) foreign ministers in Jakarta earlier this month. He will likely miss a Brics (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) summit in Johannesburg next week.

He was conspicuously absent from a meeting of high-level foreign delegates in Beijing this week, including Henry Kissinger, and a rare visit by Ukraine’s deputy economy minister.

Other engagements also appear to have stalled. A trip to China by James Cleverly, the Foreign Secretary, originally slated for early this month has yet to be confirmed. Another by Josep Borrell, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, was cancelled by Beijing.

Officially, the Chinese government has said Mr Qin is away for unspecified “health reasons”, and that Wang Yi, the country’s top diplomat, would fill in at the Asean meeting.

One rumour going around is that he had an affair with Fu Xiaotian, a Chinese television presenter.

The presenter, who has also disappeared from public view recently, was accused of flirting with Mr Qin in an interview in March last year, potentially violating the Chinese Ministry of State Security’s regulations.

A protege of leader Xi Jinping and regarded as a loyalist, Mr Qin was seen as a rising star.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world...8ffed54d1&ei=8