The former Foreign Minister’s cryptic?disappearance since June 25, 2023, incited a wave of speculations both within and outside the country. Social Media went into a frenzy with searches on his arbitrary eviction and?the month-long?evasion from the public eye,?preceding the event. His last meeting was with the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, along with senior diplomats from Vietnam, Russia and Sri Lanka, in Beijing. Qin’s?subsequent absence from the?summit in Indonesia was vaguely associated to unspecified health problems. And when even his ministry refused to respond to any concerns raised over his sudden disappearance, it ushered in a wave of rumors, pervading his political and personal space.?

All planned meeting since, were either cancelled or substituted for by Wang. Wang had also represented China at diplomatic summits in Jakarta and Johannesburg.?Qin,?once a former ambassador to the US and a?close confidant of President Xi Jinping,?earned the repute of ‘Warrior Gang’ while pushing China’s wolf-warrior diplomacy. Having attributed Qin’s descent to China’s leader,?Daniel Russel -from the Asia Society Policy Institute- in conversation with the BBC, calls the sudden move an ‘embarrassing lapse in judgement at the top.'?