Why is China purging its nuclear missile force?
Top military commanders in China’s nuclear missile force have disappeared and been replaced
Qin Gang
Tuesday
Thursday
Where has Xi Jinping’s foreign minister gone?
The best answer from foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning? She has ‘no knowledge of the situation’
Wednesday
Where has Xi Jinping’s foreign minister gone?
This is the week that James Cleverly planned to be in Beijing to ‘engage, robustly and also constructively’ with China’s communist leaders. But the Foreign Secretary put his trip on hold because the man he planned to engage went missing. Since 25 June foreign minister Qin Gang has vanished without trace, leaving Cleverly twiddling his thumbs and the world wondering what on earth is going on at the top of the Chinese Communist party. The whole bizarre spectacle underlines the challenges of engaging with a system that is so deeply opaque. The mystery deepened on Tuesday when state media reported that Qin was being replaced by his predecessor Wang Yi
Wednesday
The strange disappearance of China’s foreign minister
If he has been purged it reflects extremely poorly on Xi’s judgment
Monday
Why Xi Jinping finally agreed to meet Antony Blinken
The US-China rivalry doesn’t have to descend into an existential struggle
Tuesday
Beijing is already bankrolling Putin’s war
China simply cannot be taken seriously as a peacemaker