{"id":17695,"date":"2023-10-25T03:30:11","date_gmt":"2023-10-25T03:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/china-sacks-defence-minister-removes-ex-fm-from-cabinet\/"},"modified":"2023-10-25T03:30:11","modified_gmt":"2023-10-25T03:30:11","slug":"china-sacks-defence-minister-removes-ex-fm-from-cabinet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/china-sacks-defence-minister-removes-ex-fm-from-cabinet\/","title":{"rendered":"China sacks defence minister, removes ex-FM from cabinet"},"content":{"rendered":"

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BEIJING: In a major reshuffle of its top leadership, China removed defence minister Li Shangfu and ousted former foreign minister Qin Gang from its cabinet on Tuesday, state media said.<\/p>\n

The news comes after months of speculation about the country\u2019s cabinet, including confusion over the abrupt removal<\/a> of Qin from office in July without explanation and the months-long absence of Li from public view.<\/p>\n

Both Qin and Li are believed by experts to have been personally selected for their roles by President Xi Jinping.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday state broadcaster CCTV<\/em> announced the removals in its regular evening bulletin, but did not offer reasons for the ministers\u2019 fall from grace.<\/p>\n

No replacement for Li as defence minister was announced.<\/p>\n

\n

Both ministers were believed to have been personally picked by President Xi<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Previously, it had been reported that the US government believed Li was under investigation and had been stripped of his ministerial duties, but China had refused to comment on the matter.<\/p>\n

Li travelled to Russia in August to attend a security conference near Moscow on Aug 15. Two days later, the government of Belarus released handout photographs of Li meeting with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko in Minsk. But since then, he has vanished from public view.<\/p>\n

Li\u2019s now confirmed removal means there is no apparent host for China\u2019s regional security dialogue next week, the Xiangshan Forum, which is due to be attended by representatives from the US Department of Defence.<\/p>\n

Xi\u2019s unparalleled power<\/strong><\/p>\n

Experts said Tuesday\u2019s announcement deepened the recent uncertainty around China\u2019s top leadership.<\/p>\n

Neil Thomas, Chinese politics fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute, told AFP<\/em> that the recent upheaval \u201chints at severe deficiencies in the vetting process for top officials at the 20th Party Congress last year, possibly due to lower-level officials not wanting to push back against Xi\u2019s preferred candidates\u201d.<\/p>\n

But the removal of Li and Qin is \u201cunlikely to significantly undermine (Xi\u2019s) political authority, as neither was part of his true inner circle\u201d, Thomas said.<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir purge reinforces to other officials the importance of retaining Xi\u2019s favour.\u201d As well as being removed as defence minister, Li has also lost his position on the State Council, China\u2019s cabinet.<\/p>\n

Former foreign minister Qin, who was removed from office by Beijing\u2019s top lawmaking body after just 207 days on the job, has now also been stripped of his cabinet position.<\/p>\n

He was replaced<\/a> by Wang Yi, a veteran diplomat who served as foreign minister before Qin and who outranked him in the Chinese government hierarchy.<\/p>\n

Xi\u2019s \u201cwillingness to correct course despite the optics suggest he is confident that such decisions do not have major repercussions\u201d, Yun Sun, senior fellow and director of the China Program at the Stimson Center in Washington, told AFP<\/em>, adding that \u201cXi\u2019s control and power are unparalleled\u201d.<\/p>\n

Any possible investigation into Li is \u201clikely to continue for a while and we will not know the true reason for a long time\u201d, Sun said.<\/p>\n

\u2018Elite politics at play\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

That opacity was also evident when China announced recently a new leadership for its Rocket Force, the army unit that oversees its nuclear arsenal, as media reported a corruption probe involving its former chief.<\/p>\n

The navy\u2019s former deputy commander, Wang Houbin, was named as the new commander of the force in a brief article by state news agency Xinhua<\/em> reporting his promotion to the rank of general.<\/p>\n

His predecessor, Li Yuchao, had not been seen in public for weeks and Xinhua gave no explanation for his removal.<\/p>\n

CCTV<\/em> also announced on Tuesday that science and technology minister Wang Zhigang and finance minister Liu Kun had been removed from their posts.<\/p>\n

They will be replaced by current ministry of science and technology party secretary Yin Hejun and finance ministry party secretary Lan Fo\u2019an respectively.<\/p>\n

Adam Ni, publisher of the China Neican<\/em> newsletter, told AFP<\/em> the dismissals showed \u201celite politics at play\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cLeadership instability continues unabated despite the cementing of paramount power by Xi,\u201d he said, adding \u201call those below Xi with the exception of very few are subjected to quick falls from power\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey can be picked and they can be discarded,\u201d Ni said.<\/p>\n

Published in Dawn, October 25th, 2023<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BEIJING: In a major reshuffle of its top leadership, China removed defence minister Li Shangfu and ousted former foreign minister Qin Gang from its cabinet on Tuesday, state media said. The news comes after months of speculation about the country\u2019s cabinet, including confusion over the abrupt removal of Qin from office in July without explanation […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17696,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i.dawn.com\/large\/2023\/10\/25081904876c846.png?r=081932","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-top-news"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17695\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}