File pictures of former Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang (left) and Defence Minister Li Shangfu (right).
| Photo Credit: Agencies

China’s ruling Communist Party on July 18 accepted the resignation of sacked Foreign Minister Qin Gang from its Central Committee and endorsed the decision to expel former Defence Minister Li Shangfu and two other top Generals from the Party.

The decision came during the top-level meeting of the Party’s Central Committee, which concluded here on July 18.

According to the communique issued at the end of the four-day session called the third plenum of the Chinese Communist Party (CPC) Central Committee convened to discuss measures to improve the economy has accepted “Comrade Qin Gang’s resignation”.

Mr. Qin, 58, disappeared suddenly in 2023 from public view after serving as China’s shortest-serving Foreign Minister before being stripped of his remaining titles in the government.

The reason for his removal is still not known.

His whereabouts are also not known. However, while accepting his resignation, the Central Committee still referred to Mr. Qin as “Comrade”.

Mr. Qin was subsequently replaced by his predecessor Wang Yi who is also a member of the high-powered Politburo of the Party.

Earlier, Mr. Qin was stripped of his position as a state councillor and was allowed to resign as a member of the National People’s Congress (NPC), China’s Parliament.

The third plenum also confirmed the Politburo’s earlier decision to expel Gen. Li Shangfu and two other senior Generals of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Li Yuchao and Sun Jinming, from the Party.

Li Shangfu, who headed the country’s Rocket (Missile) Force before becoming Defence Minister, was being tried for alleged corruption.

Li Yuchao, who was also part of the Rocket Force, was sacked along with Li Shangfu.

The meeting also endorsed the decision of another top PLA, Gen. Sun Jinming, from the Party for corruption and indiscipline.

Official media reports say their removals highlighted the intensity of the ongoing anti-corruption campaign by President Xi Jinping to cleanse the military of corrupt elements. Mr. Xi, 71, is also the General Secretary of the CPC.

So far, over 50 military officials of various ranks have been removed or punished since Mr. Xi came to power in 2012.

Then China’s Premier Li Keqiang speaks during the ASEAN-China Summit in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Friday, Nov. 11, 2022. File photo
| Photo Credit: AP

China’s former Premier Li Keqiang died of a heart attack on Friday, October 27, 2023 aged 68, just 10 months after retiring from a decade of office during which his star had dimmed.

Once viewed as a top Communist Party leadership contender, Li was sidelined in recent years by President Xi Jinping, who tightened his grip on power and steered the world’s second-largest economy in a more statist direction.

The elite Peking University-educated economist was seen as a supporter of a more liberal market economy but had to bend to Xi’s preference for more state control.

“Comrade Li Keqiang, while resting in Shanghai in recent days, experienced a sudden heart attack on Oct. 26 and after all-out efforts to revive him failed, died in Shanghai at ten minutes past midnight on Oct. 27,” state broadcaster CCTV reported. An obituary will be published later, it said.

Li was premier and head of China’s cabinet under Xi for a decade until stepping down in March.

“No matter how the international winds and clouds change, China will unswervingly expand its opening up.” Li said at his last public appearance in a press conference in March. “The Yangtze River and the Yellow River will not flow backwards.”

He was born in Anhui province in eastern China, a poor farming area where his father was an official and where he was sent to toil in the fields during the Cultural Revolution.

He memorably said in 2020 that 600 million people in China earned less than the equivalent of $140 per month, sparking a wider debate on poverty and income inequality.