Choose between stability and downward spiral China’s foreign minister tells Blinken during Beijing trip

Just five weeks ago, Chinese Foreign Minister Chen Zhang was at the centre of an essential restoration of high-level diplomacy in US-China relations, as the man shook hands with his counterpart, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in Beijing, as well as accepted his invitation to visit the United States.

However, today, he is gone, and as they say, “there is no feeling or news,” and he has been like this for more than a month.

Surprise and ambiguity prevail:

Until the Chinese authorities broke their silence yesterday and announced the appointment of his predecessor without mentioning any other information about the fate of the high-ranking diplomat.

Today, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs refused to comment on the dismissal of the disappeared minister. In response to a question from the media about the sudden removal of Chen on Tuesday, its spokeswoman Mao Ning referred journalists to an article in the state media: “Regarding this question, Xinhua has already published information… You can go back to that.”

As a sign of the volatility of China’s elite politics, Chen was suddenly removed from the post of Foreign Minister on Tuesday after disappearing for 30 days.

This step ended the career of the diplomat who rose to the top as one of the most rising stars, earning the trust of President Xi Jinping, according to the 

researchers.

In turn, Jude Blanchett, a Chinese research advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, explained that surprise and ambiguity dominated the situation regarding what happened with the Chinese minister, noting that they have also become the most prominent features of the political system during the era of Xi.

He stressed the strangeness of the matter, especially since the official decision to replace Chen and replace him with former Foreign Minister Wang Yi came after weeks of speculation about his fate.

While the Chinese Foreign Ministry claimed that Chen was suffering from health problems, the assignment announcement came via a summary issued by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, a council of the Chinese legislature that officially appoints senior government officials. Nothing was mentioned about the man’s health or any other reasons for his disappearance.

The 57-year-old sacked Chinese Foreign Minister has risen rapidly through the ranks of the Chinese Foreign Ministry in recent years.

Chen graduated from the University of International Relations, a college in Beijing linked to China’s security apparatus, and worked as an assistant in the Beijing bureau of United Press International before joining the State Department in 1992.

In addition to his position as Minister of Foreign Affairs, he also held the position of State Counselor, a high-ranking position in the Chinese State Council, and a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, and he still holds both positions until now.

The former minister, considered a trusted aide to the Chinese president, has risen rapidly and unusually in the Chinese diplomatic corps in recent years after serving as chief of protocol for the Chinese president.

He also worked as a spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and a diplomat in London before he was appointed as Beijing’s ambassador to Washington in 2021, despite his lack of official background in dealing directly with the file of American relations.

He then joined the party’s Central Committee and won promotion to the position of Foreign Minister late last year. His appointment marked a break from China’s tradition of heavily emphasizing experience in government positions.

According to the Wall Street Journal, they explained that the scarcity of information about Chen’s whereabouts sparked speculation on social media.

The report pointed out that, in light of China’s ambiguous political system, the absence of senior officials is often justified by health problems. When Wang Lijun, the former police chief in the city of Chongqing, disappeared in February 2012, the municipal authorities said that he was receiving “treatment” for stress. He was exhausted, although he fled to the US consulate in the nearby city of Chengdu to seek asylum.

Notably, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs had previously indicated that there were health reasons for Chen’s absence from a diplomatic meeting in Indonesia earlier this month after he had been only five weeks ago, at the heart of an essential diplomatic process between the United States and China.

Chinese President Xi Jinping’s decision to dismiss Chen raised many questions, but China, known for its media conservatism, did not give a reason for the dismissal.

In a hastily held session yesterday, Tuesday, the Standing Committee of the Chinese Legislature decided that Wang Yi, the former Foreign Minister and China’s top diplomat, would regain his old position, which he abandoned late last year.