Behind the Mysterious Downfall of China’s Missing Foreign Minister, Wall Street Journal, Oct. 18, 2024.
By Lingling Wei
A three-part podcast series digs into why Qin Gang vanished from view in June 2023
For the past year, there has been one China story I haven’t been able to get out of my head: the sudden disappearance of China’s foreign minister, Qin Gang, in the summer of 2023.
Qin was a trusted aide to Chinese leader Xi Jinping and a rising political star. What went wrong? To find out what happened I joined forces with the team at our flagship podcast, “The Journal.” It has been one of the hardest stories to report in my career.
In September last year, I reported that, based on what people briefed on the matter told me, an internal Communist Party investigation found Qin had an extramarital affair while serving as China’s ambassador to the U.S.
And it wasn’t just any affair, they said. Senior Communist Party officials were told that this affair threatened China’s national security. The party explained Qin’s downfall as rooted in “lifestyle issues.”
I thought there was more to it. The sudden undoing of Qin was one of the most intriguing political mysteries since Xi came to power in late 2012.
Our three-part podcast series on the missing foreign minister is based on interviews with officials and others briefed on Beijing’s probe into Qin, people who said they knew about his affair with a glamorous Chinese TV host as well as intelligence and foreign-policy experts inside and outside China.
Reporting on China has always been challenging, and these days more so than ever. Officials and others rarely want to talk about matters as sensitive as this one, let alone going on the record. They could lose their careers—or worse.
What we learned will give you a peek behind the curtain of one of the most opaque and powerful governments in the world.
Listen to Episode One, on how Qin became one of the youngest foreign ministers in the history of the People’s Republic.
In Episode Two, we chart the affair that sat at the core of Qin’s downfall.
Episode Three reveals why the Chinese believed this affair could threaten national security.
Thanks for listening.
Write to Lingling Wei at Lingling.Wei@wsj.com