Michael Cunningham
In August, reports surfaced that Chinese authorities had detained Liu Jianchao (刘建超), a senior diplomat widely viewed as a leading candidate to become the country’s next foreign minister (The Wall Street Journal [WSJ], August 10). Authorities have not commented on Liu’s status, and he was not among the 14 officials expelled at the Central Committee’s Fourth Plenum in October (Xinhua, October 23). But his prolonged absence, coupled with the appointment in late September of Liu Haixing (刘海星) to replace him as the head of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) International Liaison Department (ILD; 中国共产党中央委员会对外联络部), strongly suggests that Liu Jianchao’s career is over (CCP ILD, September 30).
The foreign affairs apparatus in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has faced a succession crisis since 2023, when Qin Gang (秦刚) was removed as foreign minister only seven months into the job (Lowy Institute, August 20). The reappointment of Qin’s predecessor Wang Yi (王毅), who had moved in 2022 to a higher-ranking role as head of the Party’s Office of the Central Foreign Affairs Commission (CFAO; 中央外事工作委员会办公室), signaled that the Party lacked an obvious replacement for Qin. Wang had already surpassed the customary retirement age before being appointed to lead the CFAO, indicating a shortage of diplomats with the experience, Party rank, and political reliability that the CCP seeks for its top foreign policy leadership, even before the country’s top diplomats started going missing (Baidu/Wang Yi, accessed.
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