Was Russia a factor in Qin Gang’s purge?
Qin Gang may have been purged, in part, due to Russia policy failings. Unless he wasn’t, of course.
Qin Gang, the PRC’s former Foreign Minister , has apparently been purged. Qin, who was last seen in public on June 25th, the same day the Wagner uprising concluded, is now being scrubbed from the PRC MOFA website.
Let’s be clear from the outset: Chinese domestic politics is a black box and the analysis that follows is highly speculative.
With those caveats, limited – and highly circumstantial – evidence suggests the PRC’s Russia policy may have been an element in Qin’s apparent purge. It’s very striking that Qin was last seen in public on June 25th, the same day the Wagner “Mutiny Plus” (h/t Michael Kofman) concluded. Qin may have been purged because of his direct performance in the crisis; he also may have suffered a health crisis during an extremely stressful situation. Alternatively, or simultaneously, figures in the Chinese leadership may have opportunistically used the emergency to knife Qin bureaucratically. Of course, some other explanation may ultimately prove more accurate.
It’s plausible that the PRC leadership believes its Russia policy has been a failure and, amid the Prigozhin affair, decided to scapegoat Qin. At the same time, it cannot appear weak by admitting failure publicly, and so decided to wait for a month – to the day – before formally purging Qin.
Furthermore, Qin’s removal came two days before the publication of Al-Jazeera’s striking interview with Fu Cong, the PRC’s envoy to Europe, on June 27th.
In comments to Al-Jazeera, Fu suggested that Beijing might back Ukraine’s aims of reclaiming its 1991 territorial integrity, even Crimea. It’s not clear when Fu made his comments, however, as Al-Jazeera wrote “[t]he Chinese ambassador’s comments followed the 2023 Europe-China Business Summit in Brussels on June 16.”
Fu was almost certainly expressing his own—and not Beijing’s—position on the matter.
PRC diplomats – including Qin Gang, when he was posted to the United States as the Chinese ambassador – have been unreliable barometers of Beijing’s policy towards Russia throughout the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine. Chinese diplomats posted in DC, Brussels, and other Western capitals have often downplayed Beijing’s support for Moscow; conversely, the PRC ambassador to Moscow asked Chinese companies to help “fill the void” left behind by Western firms fleeing Russia.
It's possible that Beijing is considering edging away from Moscow, and that Fu’s comments were meant as a trial balloon. More likely, however, is that he was attempting to placate European audiences while not actually speaking for Beijing.
We can’t rule out that Beijing is furious with Fu for going too far, however, especially since the interview was released at an extraordinarily sensitive time in Sino-Russian relations. is taking out its frustration on his boss. Beijing may have applied a policy of (杀鸡儆猴, literally, killing the chicken to scare the monkeys, or making an example out of someone) to discipline Fu and discourage further freelancing from PRC diplomats. If this is the case, Fu might also be removed, after some period.
In sum, it’s unclear why Qin has been purged. The most likely explanation is that Beijing had deep misgivings about the former ambassador to the United States that were broader than just the events surrounding the Prigozhin mutiny. Still, the Wagner mutiny may have been a key element, or even the deciding factor, in Qin’s apparent purge. We likely won’t know the full story for quite some time, if ever.
Joe Webster is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and editor of the China-Russia Report. This article represents his own personal opinion.
The China-Russia Report is an independent, nonpartisan newsletter covering political, economic, and security affairs within and between China and Russia. All articles, comments, op-eds, etc represent only the personal opinion of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the position(s) of The China-Russia Report.