NEW DELHI, Oct 24: China has removed the Defence Minister Gen. Li Shangfu, who has been out of public view for almost two months with little explanation, media reports said on Tuesday. Mr. Li is the second senior Chinese official after the former foreign minister Qin Gang to disappear this year. Gang was removed from office in July with no explanation offered.
Mr. Li, who became Defence Minister during a Cabinet reshuffle in March, hasn’t been seen since giving a speech on August 29. There is no indication that the disappearances of Mr. Qin and Mr. Li signal a change in China’s foreign or defence policies, although they have raised questions about the resilience of president and ruling Communist Party leader Xi Jinping’s circle of power.
Mr. Xi has a reputation for valuing loyalty above all and has relentlessly attacked corruption in public and private, sometimes in what has been seen as a method of eliminating political rivals and shoring up his political position amid a deteriorating economy and rising tensions with US over trade, technology and Taiwan.
Mr. Li is under U.S. sanctions related to his overseeing weapon purchases from Russia that bar him from entering the country. China has since cut off contacts with the U.S. military, mainly in protest over U.S. arm sales to Taiwan, but also strongly implying that Washington must lift the measures against Mr. Li, which Beijing refuses to publicly recognise.
(Manas Dasgupta)