Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Qin Gang (秦剛) will skip an international gathering of top diplomats this week due to his “physical condition,” the Beijing government said, making a rare disclosure about the health of an official.
China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi (王毅), will instead attend the annual ASEAN gathering of foreign ministers in Indonesia.
The decision was announced by Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Wang Wenbin (汪文斌) at a regular press briefing in Beijing yesterday. He declined to elaborate on the nature of Qin’s physical condition.
Photo: AP
The meetings, which began yesterday in Jakarta, would have put Qin and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in the same room for the first time since they met in Beijing last month.
Qin has not been seen in public for 16 days, an absence which had drawn scrutiny in recent days. His last official engagement was on June 25, when he met officials from Sri Lanka, Russia and Vietnam, the Chinese foreign ministry’s Web site said.
Qin had been expected to meet EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell earlier this month, but China abruptly postponed the trip without giving details.
Politico previously reported there was speculation in Brussels the foreign minister had health issues, prompting the delay.
China’s military yesterday showed off its machine-gun equipped robot battle “dogs” at the start of its biggest ever drills with Cambodian forces. More than 2,000 troops, including 760 Chinese military personnel, are taking part in the drills at a remote training center in central Kampong Chhnang Province and at sea off Preah Sihanouk Province. The 15-day exercise, dubbed Golden Dragon, also involves 14 warships — three from China — two helicopters and 69 armored vehicles and tanks, and includes live-fire, anti-terrorism and humanitarian rescue drills. The hardware on show included the so-called “robodogs” — remote-controlled four-legged robots with automatic rifles mounted on their
A Philippine boat convoy bearing supplies for Filipino fishers yesterday said that it was headed back to port, ditching plans to sail to a reef off the Southeast Asian country after one of their boats was “constantly shadowed” by a Chinese vessel. The Atin Ito (“This Is Ours”) coalition convoy on Wednesday set sail to distribute fuel and food to fishers and assert Philippine rights in the disputed South China Sea. “They will now proceed to the Subic fish port to mark the end of their successful mission,” the group said in a statement. A Philippine Coast Guard vessel escorting the convoy was
SHAKE-UP: Lam, who would be the third president in less than two years, emerged as one of the country’s most important officials after leading an anti-corruption effort Vietnam has nominated the enforcer of the Communist Party’s anti-corruption drive as the next president and proposed a new head of the National Assembly, in appointments that could ease months of political turmoil and allow policymakers to refocus on a struggling economy. Unprecedentedly for a one-party nation once known for its stable politics, two state presidents and a National Assembly speaker have stepped down in less than 18 months, all for unspecified “wrongdoing” amid a major anti-graft campaign which is unnerving foreign investors because of its chilling effect on bureaucracy. After approval from the National Assembly, which could come this week, Vietnamese
STREET WATCH: Residents watched over barricades blocking roads and flew white flags to show that they intended to keep an eye on their neighborhoods France yesterday deployed troops to New Caledonia’s ports and international airport, banned TikTok and imposed a state of emergency after three nights of clashes that have left four dead and hundreds wounded. Pro-independence, largely indigenous protests against a French plan to impose new voting rules on its Pacific archipelago have spiraled into the deadliest violence since the 1980s, with a police officer among several killed by gunfire. On roads, the torched detritus amassed over four days of unrest was scattered amid fist-size hunks of rock and cement that appeared to have been flung during riots. Armored vehicles roved the city’s palm-lined boulevards, usually