The Qin Gang Saga Reveals Security Gaps

Executive Summary: 

• In June 2023, Qin Gang, the former foreign minister of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), mysteriously disappeared, with rumors speculating torture and execution. Recent reports suggest that he remains alive and has been demoted to a deputy director position at World Affairs Press under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
• Qin’s downfall is reportedly linked to his extramarital affair with former Phoenix TV host Fu Xiaotian, raising significant security concerns about the potential exposure of Chinese state secrets to foreign governments. Fu’s whereabouts also remain unknown, further adding intrigue to the scandal.
• This high-profile case highlights ongoing security gaps within the PRC’s political elite, particularly within its overseas assets. It underscores the broader issue of the Chinese Communist Party’s struggles with internal discipline, surveillance of diplomats, and potential foreign intelligence compromises.

In June 2023, then-Foreign Minister of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) Qin Gang (秦刚) disappeared from public view. Speculation about his fate ensued, including rumors of torture and execution for being a Western spy. This year, however, reports have trickled out indicating that he remains alive and an active, if demoted, member of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

The first signs of leniency emerged months ago. Qin was referred to as “comrade” and allowed to resign, rather than be expelled, from his seats at the National People’s Congress in February and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Central Committee in July (Xinhua, February 27; Gov.cn, July 18). In late August. Western outlets including Intelligence Online and The Washington Post cited unnamed sources to report that the deposed minister was now a deputy director at World Affairs Press, a publishing arm under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), Qin’s career work unit (Intelligence Online, 28 August; The Washington Post, 8 September).

If Qin is working at World Affairs Press, it appears to be a state secret, albeit an open one. The organization’s “Company Leadership (公司领导)” page shows only two deputy directors, Yan Nan (闫楠) and Gu Yu (谷雨) (World Affairs Press, accessed September 30). No page on the site includes Qin Gang, even those with photos of employee gatherings (World Affairs Press, accessed September 30). A reporter for The Washington Post who visited the World Affairs Bookshop in August was told by staff that they had not heard of Qin Gang being one of their own (The Washington Post, 8 September).

Affairs at the Heart of the Disappearance

Soon after the Qin saga began, the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal, citing unnamed sources, reported that the erstwhile foreign minister’s troubles were rooted in his affair and surrogate child with Fu Xiaotian (傅晓田), now also among the disappeared (Wall Street Journal, September 19, 2023; Financial Times, September 26, 2023). Ms. Fu was formerly a prominent host on the Phoenix Television Network (凤凰卫视), where she headed its “Talk with World Leaders (风云对话),” a bilingual broadcast in English and Chinese. On the program, Fu interviewed prominent individuals such as former UN General Secretary Ban Ki Moon, the late Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, former US Secretary of State John Kerry, and the Syrian dictator Bashir Al Assad. She also interviewed Qin Gang during his tenure as the PRC’s ambassador to the United States (July 27, 2021–January 5, 2023).

Fu’s interviews are still prominently featured on the “Talk With World Leaders” YouTube channel, overshadowing those of her successor, Nancie Zhu (Youtube/TalkWithWorldLeaders, accessed September 30; Youtube/Nancie Zhu 朱梓橦, April 8). Her interview with Qin Gang remains available (Youtube/凤凰专区 Phoenix zone, April 12, 2022). Remarkably, a page on the website of the PRC Embassy in Washington, DC still records that the interview took place and links to the page on Phoenix Television’s website that previously published the interview (now taken down) (PRC Embassy to the United States, March 24, 2022). This could suggest that she has maintained some form of powerful backing.

The pair reportedly met in London in 2010 while Qin was posted there as the PRC’s envoy to the United Kingdom, before becoming intimate on his return to Beijing. Later, while Qin served as the PRC’s ambassador to the United States, various sources have reported that Ms. Fu ensconced herself and her new baby in a large house in the small but well-heeled Southern California town of Newport Coast (SpyTalk, July 20, 2023). The house, with nine bathrooms and eight bedrooms, rented for over $48,000 per month at the time, according to Zillow. This is unsurprising, given her apparent wealth. In 2016, while living in the United Kingdom, Fu provided a “series of generous gifts” to Cambridge University’s Churchill College, where she completed a graduate degree in education in 2007 (Churchill College, June 10, 2016; Youtube/Churchill College, University of Cambridge, July 6, 2016). In recognition of her donations, the college, which would not disclose the value of the gifts, named a garden after her (Churchill College, accessed September 30). Fu may or may not have survived this affair, but her X (formerly Twitter) account lives on, where she posted about her glamorous lifestyle until April 2023 (X/Fu Xiaotian 傅曉田, accessed September 30). Fu’s open declaration of her wealth culminated in early 2023 with what many observers interpreted as very public hints on WeChat and Twitter that her new baby was fathered by Qin Gang, though any affair between the two remains unconfirmed (X/Fu Xiaotian 傅曉田, April 10, 2023).

Extramarital affairs are not uncommon among the CCP elite, but punishment varies depending on their rank. Professor Tomohiko Taniguchi of Tsukuba University, formerly an adviser to the late Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and a councillor in Japan’s Cabinet Secretariat, suggested in an interview that if they “lived a life of ostentation and luxury abroad, highly visible to ordinary Chinese citizens, then the more senior their positions in the Party and government, the more likely they would become targets of punitive sanctions” (Author interview, September 29). Taniguchi suggested that is also possible that Qin and Fu could be punished in order to “set a deterrent example.”

Qin Not the First Potentially Compromised PRC Diplomat

The Qin-Fu matter raised glaring security concerns. It is possible that US and other Western observers had also seen the public social media posts that alluded to the extramarital liaison. If so, then it is also possible that the FBI could have compromised Qin Gang or Fu Xiaotian, or both. The apparent degree of openness of the relationship makes it hard to believe that Qin’s comrades in the PRC embassy in Washington did not report it to their own security authorities, particularly those right on the spot—the embassy’s security office and State Security and Public Security liaison officers stationed there.

The disappearance of Qin Gang and his telegenic paramour and her child, likely for investigation, “shows limited institutional learning by both the MFA and [Ministry of State Security (MSS)],” a security analyst based in East Asia told China Brief (Author Interview, September 28). Two prior known cases of compromise also involved a PRC envoy. In 2014, then-PRC ambassador to Iceland Ma Jisheng (马继生) disappeared for six months along with his spouse, after which he was arrested by the MSS for leaking state secrets to Japan (The Guardian, September 17, 2014; Baidu Baike/马继生, accessed September 30). (Ma previously had been stationed in Japan in 1991–1995 and 2004–2008 (BBC News Chinese, September 14, 2014).) In December 2006, PRC ambassador to South Korea Li Bin (李滨) was arrested for relaying information to his host government about a visit to the PRC by North Korean leader Kim Jong-il (IntelNews, September 18, 2014; Baidu Baike/李滨, accessed September 30). The security analyst, who requested anonymity to discuss a sensitive issue, added that “political appointments in any authoritarian regime are an extension of the leader’s will.” As such, the leader’s unquestioned decisions can interfere with any process to identify potential risk factors, they said. [1] Another analyst, Stephan Blancke, an Associate Fellow at the Royal United Service Institute who also writes for Intelligence Online, commented that “the more authoritarian a system becomes, the more corrupt and mafia-like it becomes” (Author interview, October 4).

PRC Lessons from the Qin Case

The Qin-Fu case presents an opportunity for the MSS and other agencies that may be conducting investigations to audit the security of the PRC’s overseas assets. Such examinations would logically extend to clandestine State Security stations abroad under non-official cover, United Front Work Department offices, and the “overseas police stations” run by the PRC’s Public Security Bureaus (China Brief, June 11, 2023).

Beyond a simple investigation, the Party-state’s response could more closely resemble a purge. This would indicate that long-term problems in the system remain unaddressed, including, Professor Taniguchi notes, “a political culture that dictates that one must display acquired wealth.” Such a comprehensive effort to investigate or purge relevant organs is for now only speculation. Rumors that Fu Xiaotian was being used in a CCP elite political gambit to take down Qin Gang and embarrass General Secretary Xi Jinping, for example, also remain unsubstantiated.

A separate response could involve developing a system to detect insider threats. In the early decades of the PRC, diplomats were not allowed to meet with foreigners alone and instead were accompanied by members of staff who would watch the principal and keep tabs on each other (State Security operatives under diplomatic or other cover may be an exception). According to a European former official, the PRC has reverted to this playbook in recent years. Internal surveillance systems need not be confined to such overt, human resource-intensive methods, however.

A related system has been developed by the MFA to monitor private PRC companies operating overseas. On September 27, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) broke the story of a mobile phone app developed by the MFA called “Safe Silk Road Network (平安丝路网),” which is being foisted upon Chinese enterprises participating in the One Belt One Road (OBOR) initiative (ASPI, September 27). The “Safe Silk Road Network (平安丝路网)” began operation in September 2017, carrying news of security concerns in countries where Chinese companies are active (Safe Silk Road Network, accessed September 30; ksrmtzx.com, July 8). The platform somewhat resembles US, Australian, and other efforts, such as the US State Department’s Overseas Security Advisory Council (OSAC), its Smart Traveler Enrollment Program (STEP), and Canberra’s Smartraveller (OSAC, February 8, 2019; STEP, accessed September 30; Smartraveller, accessed September 30). ASPI’s research shows that the PRC platform goes further than its Western analogues, however. Unlike these other programs, “Safe Silk Road” is not public facing, it is tailored specifically for OBOR companies, and—most importantly—it asks for and in some cases requires detailed information about the companies’ own activities and local conditions rather than just offering helpful security tips. It is possible that the MFA could engineer a similar system to keep tabs on those in its direct line of service.

Conclusion

There has been some detail, if scant, about Qin Gang since he disappeared. Two things make it seem possible that Qin Gang has been spared in body, if not in career. First, as noted above, he has been officially referred to as “comrade,” indicating he lives, breathes, and has been cleared of any serious charges such as espionage. Second, while there is no exact precedent for Qin’s predicament, there is precedent in CCP history for the great leader to spare a personal favorite who has committed a less-than-mortal sin. Mao did so in 1946–47, removing Kang Sheng (康生) as leader of CCP Intelligence for his excesses during the Rectification and Salvation Campaigns of 1942–44 and exiling him from the Party center for a decade, but giving him a job in Shandong Province. Mao also spared Deng Xiaoping (邓小平) at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, returning him to power eight years later, if only temporarily.

Nothing has been confirmed about Fu Xiaotian, however. The total lack of evidence—or even information—about Ms. Fu leaves open other possibilities. The sanguine look in the selfie she posted just before departing Los Angeles on a private jet does not appear to be one of a woman knowingly returning to face the music of the dictatorship of the proletariat (X/Fu Xiaotian 傅曉田, April 10). Of the many rumored motivations for her behavior, she could just as well be a female Yurchenko, loyal to the PRC throughout while manipulating the opposition. [2] In any case, as pointed out by Nicholas Eftimiades, author of two books on CCP espionage, “if Fu was cooperating with a foreign intelligence service, she was an idiot to get on that plane” (Author interview, September 29).

Concrete answers remain elusive, exacerbated by the PRC regime’s tight control over information. Partial truths about Qin Gang, Fu Xiaotian, and Fu’s child, if they ever emerge, will only do so with time. A complete account will need to await the possible, but unimaginable, opening sometime in the future of Beijing’s archives, perhaps only when hell freezes over.

Notes

[1] Other nations are not immune to such problems, including the United States. Recent scandals in Washington, DC include a retired ambassador and a former DIA senior analyst who both spied for Cuba (Youtube/60 Minutes, May 21), and infamous cases involving officers or former officials of the FBI and the CIA, to name just a few (BBC, June 5, 2023; Youtube/Philip Thompson, April 11).

[2] Vitaly Sergeyevich Yurchenko (b. May 2, 1936) is a former high-ranking KGB disinformation officer. In 1985, he defected to the United States, but later redefected back to the Soviet Union that same year.