US believes Chinese defence minister Li Shangfu is under investigation by Beijing: Report

The United States government believes that Chinese defence minister Li Shangfu has been placed under investigation by Beijing amid questions about his more than two-weeks-long absence from public view, said a report by Financial Times citing US officials, on Friday (September 15).

The FT report also follows a report by Reuters, on Thursday (Sep 14) which, citing three officials with direct knowledge of the matter, said that Li, 65, was abruptly pulled out of a meeting with Vietnamese defence leaders last week.

What do US officials believe about the disappearance?

In the latest sign of political turmoil involving high-ranking officials in China, three US officials and two people who were briefed on the intelligence in Washington concluded that Li has been “stripped of his responsibilities as defence minister.”

However, people briefed on the matter did not say what led President Joe Biden’s administration to come to this conclusion, the FT report added.

The supposed speculations by officials in Washington were further stoked by Rahm Emanuel, the US ambassador to Japan, on Friday, after he took to X and wrote, “1st: Defense Minister Li Shangfu hasn’t been seen or heard from in 3 weeks. 2nd: He was a no-show for his trip to Vietnam. Now: He’s absent from his scheduled meeting with the Singaporean Chief of Navy because he was placed on house arrest???”

The post was also accompanied by the hashtag #MysteryInBeijingBuilding after he made a reference to William Shakespeare’s play Hamlet and said “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.”

It was not immediately clear which meeting with the Singaporean Chief of NavyEmanuelwas referring to. As per Reuters, the Singapore Navy’s Rear Admiral Sean Wat was in China from September 4 to 9 where he met with PLA Navy commander Dong Jun and other Navy leaders, said the city-state’s defence ministry on its website.

But there was no mention of him meeting or being scheduled to meet Li.

Similarly, the US official, last week wrote that China’s government was “now resembling Agatha Christie’s novel And Then There Were None”.

He added, “First, Foreign Minister Qin Gang goes missing, then the Rocket Force commanders go missing, and now Defence Minister Li Shangfu hasn’t been seen in public for two weeks,” with the hashtag #MysteryInBeijingBuilding.

Meanwhile, officials in Washington and Beijing are yet to respond to the speculations about Li’s abrupt disappearance.

When was Li last seen?

The 65-year-old Chinese defence official was last seen in Beijing on August 29 delivering a key-note address at a security forum with African nations. Notably, Li’s role as China’s defence minister is mainly responsible for defence diplomacy as opposed to actually commanding combat forces.

In 2018, the US had sanctioned Li for buying weapons from Russia’s largest arms exporter, Rosoboronexport.

Chinese ministers and mysterious disappearances

Li’s supposed disappearance comes after China’s unexplained replacement of its foreign minister, Qin Gang, in July after his prolonged absence from public view.

China also replaced the head of its Rocket Force – an army unit that oversees its nuclear arsenal – in July after its former commander Li Yuchao not seen in public for weeks before the change.

“Li’s disappearance, following so shortly after Qin, speaks to how mysterious Chinese elite politics can be to the outside world,” said Alfred Wu, associate professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, as quoted by Reuters.

He added, “China under (President) Xi simply does not feel a need to explain itself to the world.”

(With inputs from agencies)

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