The country deleted thousands of references to missing politician Qin Gang from its website overnight, suggesting he is the subject of a political purge.
| China’s Foreign Ministry has erased all references to missing foreign minister Qing Gang, who was replaced overnight in what analysts are calling a political purge of one of Xi Jinping’s closest aides.Foreign Minister Penny Wong with her then-counterpart Qin Gang in March.The Chinese government did not give a reason for the abrupt senior leadership change. The move will disrupt Beijing’s efforts to re-engage with the US.
On social media overnight, Han Yang, a former Chinese diplomat living in Sydney, documented the scrubbing of Mr Qin’s string of high-level diplomatic meetings over the past seven months since he was appointed to the job. The Xinhua news agency also said Yi Gang had been removed as governor of the People’s Bank of China, replaced by the central bank’s deputy, Pan Gongsheng. However, Mr Pan’s promotion had been widely expected after he was named Communist Party chief to the central bank this month.The changes were made at an emergency meeting of China’s legislature, which also passed changes to criminal law to strengthen the punishment for bribery and corruption.
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