CHINA removed defence minister Li Shangfu and ousted ex-foreign minister Qin Gang from its cabinet on Tuesday, state media said, in a major reshuffle of top leadership.
The news comes after months of speculation about the country’s cabinet, including confusion over the abrupt removal of Qin from office in July without explanation and the months-long absence of Li from public view.
Both Qin and Li are believed by experts to have been personally selected for their roles by President Xi Jinping.
On Tuesday state broadcaster CCTV announced the removals in its regular evening bulletin, but did not offer reasons for the ministers’ fall from grace.
No replacement for Li as defence minister was announced.
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.
Li travelled to Russia in August to attend a security conference near Moscow on August 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.
Li’s now confirmed removal means there is no apparent host for China’s regional security dialogue next week, the Xiangshan Forum, which is due to be attended by representatives from the US Department of Defense.
Experts said Tuesday’s announcement deepened the recent uncertainty around China’s top leadership.
Neil Thomas, Chinese politics fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute, told AFP that the recent upheaval “hints 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’s preferred candidates”.
But the removal of Li and Qin is “unlikely to significantly undermine (Xi’s) political authority, as neither was part of his true inner circle”, Thomas said.
“Their purge reinforces to other officials the importance of retaining Xi’s favour.”