When China’s (then) foreign minister Qin Gang vanished from public view at the end of June this year, there was chatter linking his disappearance to Fu Xiaotian, a woman host and anchor with the state-controlled Phoenix TV.
Fu, one of the most influential figures in the Chinese broadcast media, too had been missing from public view.
It has now emerged that Fu, 40, had a child last year through a surrogate mother in the United States. Surrogacy is illegal in China. Chinese authorities are currently investigating the relationship between Qin and Fu.
Who is saying all this?
The Financial Times reported that Fu, who had been in a relationship with Qin, had told a close associate about the surrogate pregnancy in 2022. The report added that two other people familiar with the matter had confirmed she had had a child via a surrogate.
The Wall Street Journal had reported last week that Qin had had an extramarital affair when he was China’s ambassador to the US from July 2021 to January 2023. The relationship continued throughout Qin’s tenure in the US, the WSJ said.
The WSJ report also said that the relationship had resulted in the birth of a child in the US, citing two sources.
So what’s the big deal here?
The WSJ report last week said the investigation into the developments was focused on whether Qin’s conduct or his relationship with Fu had compromised China’s national security.
The FT report also said that Chinese authorities were scrutinising the nature of the relationship between Qin and Fu, but added it was not clear what role this relationship may have had in his disappearance or subsequent removal as foreign minister.
Is there anything else other than concerns of national security?
The Chinese government has been characteristically tightlipped over this matter, offering neither information nor explanations.
However, the FT report noted that China’s all-powerful President Xi Jinping has repeatedly emphasised that the family lives of his top officials “are an important reflection of senior officials’ work performance”.
China’s foreign ministry website describes Qin as “married with a son”. The scandal of an extramarital relationship concerning one of the highest officials of the Chinese government was unlikely to be condoned.
But what do we know about Qin’s relationship with Fu?
The FT report provides some details.
Citing an individual close to Fu, the report says she met Qin in London around 2010, after she had left Cambridge university and had started working for Phoenix TV. Qin was chargé d’affaires at the Chinese embassy in the UK at the time.
Almost a decade later, when they were both in Beijing, Qin and Fu began a “closer relationship”, the FT report said. When Qin was posted to the US, his wife, Lin Yan, accompanied him to Washington DC. However Qin continued with the relationship, and began to “limit contact” with Fu only after he was appointed foreign minister this January, the FT report said.
Fu then began to drop hints on social media about their relationship, the report said. In March 2023, she posted on Weibo, a kind of Chinese Twitter, that the father of her baby was not American. After Qin was appointed State Councillor that month, she posted a photo of the baby raising his hand, with the caption: “A victorious conclusion”.
A week later, around Qin’s birthday, she wished the unnamed father of the baby a happy birthday, and said that loving was not about “hoping for their promotion and riches”, the FT report said.
And where is Fu Xiaotian now?
Fu, who had been very active on social media, stopped posting in April.
On April 10, she boarded a private jet in Los Angeles bound for Beijing, according to the FT report. When the plane landed in Anchorage, Alaska, for refuelling, she recalled on Weibo an earlier ride on the same aircraft, and announced that on the present flight, she was accompanied by her son, Er-Kin, and that their destination was “onwards”.
She also posted in English on Twitter, and included a photo of her interview with Qin in Washington the previous year, the FT report said.
She stopped responding to messages from contacts in June, around the time that Qin was last seen in public, two people who had been in touch with her told the FT. One other person told the newspaper that she was no longer reachable by phone or messaging apps.
What’s so special about Qin Gang?
Qin, who was appointed foreign minister in December 2022 and took charge early this year, visited India in March. But he was absent when Henry Kissinger, 100, the former United States Secretary of State who brokered America’s rapprochement with the People’s Republic more than a half century ago, called on President Xi Jinping in Beijing in June.
Most Read
Qin was also missing at the ASEAN foreign ministers’ meeting in Jakarta earlier that month, and Wang Yi, who had been Qin’s predecessor in the post, had stood in. Wang met with External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on the sidelines of the meeting. Days later, India’s National Security Advisor Ajit Doval met Wang on the sidelines of the BRICS NSAs’ meeting in Johannesburg.
Then, on July 25, with no word on Qin, Wang was officially named as China’s top diplomat. Wang had held Qin’s job for almost a decade from March 2013 onward.
Qin’s six-month tenure was the shortest for any Chinese foreign minister. His removal represented a dramatic fall from grace for the man who, at age 57, became one of China’s youngest ever foreign ministers. Qin had served as President Xi’s Chief Protocol Officer between 2014 and 2018. He was then made ambassador to the US, a position that is reserved for the closest and most trusted aides of the Chinese President.
