Qin was an outspoken critic of the United States and had previously been seen as close to Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Mr. Qin’s meeting with Mr. Blinken June 18 was supposed to be the first step in a diplomatic charm offensive by the administration to improve U.S.-communications. A week after the meeting, Mr. Qin disappeared from public view and missed several diplomatic events, fueling speculation he ran afoul of senior leaders because of a political error that led to his being purged.
“No one is safe from the precarious whims of the supreme leader and the paranoid ethos of the deadly machinations in the inner core of the regime,” said Mr. Yu, now director of the China Center at the Hudson Institute. The senior U.S. administration official said Mr. Qin’s wife once made mooncakes, a Chinese seasonal dessert, and the couple presented them to Mr.Mr. Qin, 57, was then promoted from a kind of press aide and personal assistant for Mr. Xi to first, Chinese ambassador to the U.S., and then his appointment in December succeeding Mr. Wang as foreign minister.
Mr. Stilwell said Lin Biao, a close aide to Mao Zedong, and Wang Lijun, a senior CCP official in Chongqing, were powerful officials who fell out of favor and were eliminated. Later reports said his absence was due to the discovery of an affair with a female reporter, Fu Xiaotian, of Phoenix Television, a state-controlled network. Ms. Fu’s social media posts showing images with Mr. Qin were taken down by Chinese censors.
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