Is China's ousted ex-foreign minister Qin Gang dead? Here's what some reports suggest

Former Chinese foreign minister Qin Gang, who was ousted from the position in July, reportedly died later that month either from suicide or torture. This shocking claim was made in a report by Politico on Wednesday (Dec 6). Two people with access to top Chinese officials told Politico that Qin died in late July in a military hospital in Beijing that treats top Chinese leaders.

Qin was replaced by veteran diplomat Wang Yi as the foreign minister. Before this, Qin served as the Chinese ambassador to the United States and was also the country's vice minister. In 2014-2018, he became China's chief protocol officer, overseeing most of President Xi Jinping's interactions with foreign dignitaries between 2014 and 2018.

Barely six months after becoming the foreign minister, Qin held meetings in Beijing on June 25 with the foreign ministers of Sri Lanka and Vietnam, as well as Deputy Russian Foreign Minister Andrey Rudenko, the report said. Then he disappeared.

A Stalin-like purge in China?

The report of Qin's alleged death comes amid murmurs that President Xi has been going all out with a Stalin-like purge in China that started in 2012, removingmillions of officials. The unexplained disappearance and removal of Qin Gang and Defence Minister Li Shangfu are some of the biggest examples of this purge.

The Politico report said that other high-profile victims include the generals in charge of China’s nuclear weapons programme and some of the most senior officials overseeing the country's financial sector. Several of these officials apparently died in custody, the report added.

Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Rudenko, who met Qin in June in Beijing, reportedly toldXi that his foreign ministers and several top officers in the People's Liberation Army (PLA) had been compromised by Western intelligence.

An extra-marital affair

After Qin disappeared, news started emerging of his alleged affair with a journalist with whom he reportedly fathered a son, who is a US citizen by default.

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported in September that Qin had this extramarital affair when he was the ambassador to the US.

According to Politico, the woman was Fu Xiaotian- who worked for Chinese broadcaster Phoenix TV.

The report said that Fu attended Cambridge University - a traditional recruiting ground for British intelligence agencies. Fu was a student of Churchill College at the university.

She first met Qin more than 10 years ago when he was posted to the Chinese embassy in London. In 2016, Churchill College named a garden after Fu in gratitude for her very rare series of generous gifts which reportedly added up to $314,671.

Before Qin disappeared, Fu reportedly named him as the father of her child. In April, she flew back to Beijing and has not been heard from since, Politico further reported. The extra-marital affair and the illegitimate child born in the US might have been the main reasons for Qin's purge, the report said.

However, the sources cited by Politico said that the real reason for Qin's abrupt disappearance was involvement in a scandal which involved the defence minister and generals who commanded China's rocket force.

Rudenko had reportedly told Xi that Qin and relatives of top rocket force officers helped pass China's nuclear secrets to intelligence agencies in the West.

(With inputs from agencies)