In a marked blow to the authority of President Xi Jinping, his long-time protégé, People’s Republic of China (PRC) Foreign Minister and State Councillor Qin Gang was officially sacked on Tuesday at an NPC Standing Committee meeting that was abruptly announced the day before, in a deviation from typically choreographed procedure.

Qin was replaced by his boss, Politburo member and former foreign minister Wang Yi. 

Wang's official title is Head of the General Office of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) policy-setting Central Commission for Foreign Affairs (CCFA), which is headed by Xi himself. Qin is known not to get on well with Wang Yi and his successor as PRC ambassador to the US Xie Feng, who has vice-ministerial status. 

Wang, who was born in 1953 – the same year as supreme leader Xi – is expected to retire at the 23rd Party Congress in 2027, meaning that a good possibility exists that he will fill his several posts, including foreign minister, for the full five years. However, he could also be replaced earlier with a younger candidate, with Xie Feng first in line to get the post. 

Qin’s “helicopter ride” to the top was mainly due to the favorable impression that he had left with President Xi while holding the job of Chief of Protocol at the MOFA. 

Qin’s unceremonious fall would reflect poorly on Xi’s judgment. This is despite the fact that speculation about Xi’s foes using the Qin affair to denigrate the paramount leader cannot be ascertained.

That such a high ranking official like Qin disappeared from the domestic and international media for a month – without any explanation given by PRC authorities – also testifies to the difficulty of deciphering China's elite politics. No justification was given for Qin's dismissal or information about his whereabouts. 

Since becoming foreign minister in December last year, Qin has failed to demonstrate his acumen, judgment or policy-making abilities. Xi is said to be dissatisfied with Qin’s failure to mend fences with major European countries or to drive a wedge between the US and the EU, which are among the most important PRC diplomatic goals. 

There's also speculation that the reason for Qin's fall could be his intimate friendship with a glamorous journalist, Fu Xiaotian, from Hong Kong-based and pro-China Phoenix Television, who is now said to be investigated by the PRC Ministry of State Security for allegedly “leaking” state secrets to the US government.

But even if the above were true, the precipitous downfall of Qin is more plausibly explained by being the result of the power struggle among senior officers in the foreign policy establishment – and between Xi himself and his barely-hidden political foes at the upper echelons of the CCP.

Coming at a time of intense Sino-US confrontation and a sputtering economy, the Qin debacle could only weaken Xi's leadership. It also seems reasonable to expect that it will lead Xi to attempt to resuscitate the economy more forcefully.