What Qin Gang's disappearance means for U.S.-China relations

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U.S. officials greet Qin Gang, then China's foreign minister, ahead of a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken (not pictured) in Beijing on June 18, 2023. Leah Millis | Afp | Getty Images BEIJING — The flurry over Qin Gang's disappearance and removal from the position of foreign minister has little impact on U.S.-China relations, analysts said. Qin had only held the position for about six months before he disappeared from public view in late June — with little explanation. China officially announced his dismissal from the foreign minister role on Tuesday. China's top diplomat Wang Yi is reassuming the foreign minister role, a position he held for two terms before his promotion late last year within the ruling Chinese Communist Party. He has met with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken twice in the last two months. "China's foreign minister is an implementer of decisions made by [Chinese President] Xi Jinping and his close circle; their role in actual policy formulation is relatively limited," said Nick Marro, global trade leader at The Economist Intelligence Unit. "We don't expect the recent events to have a significant impact on China's diplomatic relations," he said. "That said, the opacity attached to all of this drama will complicate some of the logistics underpinning foreign engagement." China's foreign ministry has declined to shared why Qin had to leave his position. watch now While Wang's return to the foreign minister role is unusual, his promotion to top diplomat had also come contrary to expectations of retirement. Xi meanwhile has broken precedent by taking a third term as president in March, and installing loyalists in top positions without the same government experience as their predecessors. "In returning Wang to the helm at the foreign ministry, Xi appears to have opted for a steady pair of hands over any of the younger crop of candidates, buying time for potential successors to be fully vetted and groomed," said Eurasia Group's Jeremy Chan, consultant for China and Northeast Asia, and Anna Ashton, director for China corporate affairs and U.S.-China. "Wang's oversight of policy implementation is therefore likely to strengthen the consistency of Beijing's diplomatic messaging and actions, while further cementing the party's already strong guidance of foreign affairs," the Eurasia Group analysts said in a note. While pressuring China has become an area of rare bipartisan agreement in the U.S., critics say the Biden administration has not had a comprehensive China strategy. What happened to Qin?