Qin Gang, an aggressive “wolf warrior” diplomat, had a meteoric rise and an even faster fall from grace. He’s now said to be taking a salary at a Beijing state-run bookseller.

Qin Gang, an aggressive “wolf warrior” diplomat, had a meteoric rise and an even faster fall from grace. He’s now said to be taking a salary at a Beijing state-run bookseller.

His rise was meteoric, his fall equally abrupt. Ever since the summer of 2023, when then-Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang mysteriously disappeared from public view, his fate has been the subject of intense speculation.

Wild rumors abounded: He’d been imprisoned. Killed himself. None was true.

In fact, Qin is alive but, according to two former U.S. officials, in a position very diminished from his once-lofty perch close to Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Qin has been nominally assigned to a low-level job at a publishing house affiliated with the Chinese Foreign Ministry, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitivity.

Non-paywall link

  • Flying SquidMEnglish
    34•8 days ago

    I read the whole article to find out why he was demoted only to find out the answer, near the end, was, “we have no idea.”

    Thanks, WaPo.

    • @[email protected]English
      22•8 days ago

      I mean, the CCP is notoriously tight-lipped about this shit. He probably got sacked because the “wolf warrior” policy incited all of their regional neighbors to basically come together and say “fuck you, China, stop it”, and moreover has spurred the US to begin designing and implementing some very interesting and highly flexible pieces of military hardware.

      So in the context of promoting the CCP’s interests in the region and improving their ability to achieve said interests, the dude absolutely, categorically failed. All he did at the end of the day was wake up the neighbors.

      • Flying SquidMEnglish
        11•8 days ago

        I just think WaPo might have said something near the beginning is all.

      • @[email protected]English
        6•7 days ago

        Ww diplomacy was xi’s brilliant idea that backfired so spectacularly and took years to convince him was a catastrophe.

        Saying they realized xi was being an idiot is impossible so they just slowly let it drop and tried to restore sane diplomacy to counter the US making friends throughout Asia.

        WW diplomacy worked under trump when nobody could count on the US backing them therefore China was the only option, that’s over now.

        • @[email protected]English
          6•7 days ago

          Well yeah, but Qin Gang was the face of it, and was made to take the blame for it, because Dear Leader Winnie the Pooh Xi is not allowed to look like a fool, as a matter of CCP policy.

    • @Blue_MorphoEnglish
      4•8 days ago

      Thanks for doing the summary for me!