Chinese economist Zhu Hengpeng, deputy director of the Institute of Economics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, has disappeared after criticizing dictator Xi Jinping’s economic policies in a private online chat group.
Former Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang, who disappeared in June 2023 with no clear explanation and has not been seen in public since, is reportedly working a “low-level job” in Beijing and has no future career prospects, the Washington Post reported this week.
Chinese state media confirmed the expulsion on Thursday of two former defense ministers, Wei Fenghe and Li Shangfu, from the Communist Party.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin is scheduled to meet with Chinese Defense Minister Dong Jun in Singapore this weekend, holding the first face-to-face bilateral defense meeting in 18 months.
Chinese dictator Xi Jinping ordered the Communist Party’s discipline agency to engage in a more intense campaign against the “cancer” of corruption, the state news outlet Xinhua reported on Wednesday, calling the situation within the Party “grave and complex.”
China’s state-run propaganda newspaper Global Times declared President Joe Biden “inadequate” and his administration “disorderly” on Monday over the secret hospitalization of Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin – a criticism levied nearly five months after the still-unexplained disappearance of now-former Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu.
Xi Jinping reportedly agreed to allow talks between U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and the non-existent Defense Minister of China.
The sudden death of former Chinese Premier Li Keqiang – who only lost his position as second-in-command to dictator Xi Jinping in March and cultivated an image as a “rival” to the totalitarian autocrat – follows a growing list of incidents in which China’s most powerful die, suddenly disappear, or are abruptly dismissed from their jobs.
Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu has been missing from the public eye for one month as of Friday in an unexplained absence.
Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu vanished from public view more than two weeks ago, missing several important events.
Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu arrived in Russia on Monday to attend the Moscow Conference on International Security, and has plans to visit the allied tyranny of Belarus during his week-long trip.
China rejected a request from Austin to meet his Chinese counterpart on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue security forum.
State Department spokesman Matthew Miller walked back President Joe Biden’s Sunday statement that negotiations are underway to lift sanctions levied in 2018 on Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu.
