The butterfly effects of China’s politics

SHIN KYUNG-JIN
The author is the Beijing bureau chief of the JoongAng Ilbo.

The tumultuous 2023 is coming to an end. The U.S.-China rivalry was fierce in the first year of Xi Jinping’s third consecutive term. This year began with reconnaissance balloons over the U.S. territory and ended with the U.S-China summit at the historic Filoli estate south of San Francisco.

On Dec. 6, the European edition of Politico reported the possible death of former Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang without specifying the reporter’s name. Looking back at this year’s Chinese politics chronologically, I see the country overlapping with the United States and Russia. The flap of a butterfly’s wings caused a typhoon in Chinese politics.

It all started with a coup led by Yevgeny Prigozhin of Wagner Group, a Russian mercenary company, on June 23. Two days later on June 25, Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Andrey Rudenko visited Beijing. Qin Gang disappeared after the meeting. Politico claimed that Rudenko had informed Xi of Qin Gang and the Strategic Rocket Force commanders contacting American intelligence agencies.

After Qin Gang vanished, Xi met with Chairwoman of the Russian Federation Council Valentina Matviyenko, who is close to Putin, in Beijing on July 10. Qin was removed from the position of foreign minister on July 25. On the same day, the Kremlin announced President Vladimir Putin’s attendance at the Belt and Road Summit in October.

The downfall of Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu in August nearly coincides with Prigozhin’s death. On Aug. 22, Chinese President Xi did not attend the business forum, a side event at the Brics summit in South Africa. The commerce minister read the speech on Xi’s behalf. Prigozhin’s plane crashed on Aug. 23, shortly after takeoff from Moscow. On the night of August 24, Xi headed home from South Africa. On August 26, he suddenly landed in Urumqi, a frontier city. He didn’t have duties for five days until he presided over a politburo meeting in Beijing on Aug. 31.

At the time, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo was visiting China — more specifically, from Aug. 27 to 30. She met with Premier Li Qiang on Aug. 29. The defense minister disappeared after delivering a keynote speech at the China-Africa Peace and Security Forum in Beijing that day.

On Oct. 25 — the day after Li Shangfu and Qing Gang were removed from the State Council — Hong Kong’s Ming Pao, a Chinese-language newspaper, raised the possibility that Defense Minister Li Shangfu — who faced sanctions from the United States for purchasing Russian weapons — was dismissed after the United States provided evidence of corruption. The newspaper made the intriguing claim that Russia’s tip had resulted in the removal of Qin Gang, who was closed to the United States, while America’s tip caused Li Shangfu’s downfall, as he was closed to Russia. Li visited Russia twice during the six months he served as defense minister.

The newspaper claimed that the pro-U.S. and pro-Russian struggle was behind the demotion of Deputy Foreign Minister Le Yucheng, who was close to Russia, the promotion and purge of Qin Gang called China’s Rocket Man, and the demise of Li Shangfu.

There have not been any official announcements from Beijing yet. I hope there will be a reasonable explanation at the third plenary session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, which will be held sometime next year. It is the only way for China to be cleared of all suspicions about the purges quite reminiscent of Stalin’s days.