All the theories about the disappearance of China’s foreign minister

This week’s biggest news story from China is the flooding that began on the weekend, killing at least 20 people and causing untold millions or billions of yuan of damage to infrastructure, residential houses, vehicles and farmland.

But perhaps the most significant news from China this week is about things that did not happen: There is still no official explanation for the disappearance from public view of former Foreign Minister Qín Gāng 秦刚, and there has been no word from the government on what happened to two generals of the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force and why they were removed from their posts.

There may only be a few dozen people in the world who know the facts about the foreign minister and the rocket men, and those people aren’t talking. But you can read about what we know and what we can guess about Qin and the generals (summaries below).

Our Phrase of the Week is: Ten years sharpening a sword (十年磨一剑 shínián mó yíjiàn), which is being used to describe the return, with a new album, of Dāo Láng 刀郎, one of China’s biggest musicians of the 2000s after a 13-year absence.

Jeremy Goldkorn Editor-in-Chief

Anger began to mount in flooded parts of Hebei Province, which surrounds Beijing, because water that was diverted away hit places like the town of Zhuozhou, just southwest of the capital, with deadly force. Click through for more details and video.

More editors’ picks:

The Chinese government wants to limit screen time for kids. But new draft rules from the Cyberspace Administration of China are going to cut into the bottom lines of China’s tech giants.

What are the different rumors about the disappearance of China’s former foreign minister? Sinologist Geremie R. Barmé has translated a caustic essay by Wú Guóguāng 吳國光 that summarizes the various theories about Qín Gāng’s 秦刚 unexplained vanishing act. Wu is now a political scientist at Stanford University, but started his career in the Chinese government as a young policy adviser to Zhào Zǐyáng 赵紫阳 in the late 1980s, so he knows of which he speaks.

A purge at the highest ranks of China’s missile forces? Qin Gang isn’t the only senior official to disappear without explanation: Unexplained personnel changes at the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force seem to confirm rumors of a purge of corrupt generals.

China’s Vice Premier Hé Lìfēng 何立峰 went to Pakistan this week, talking up “iron brotherhood.” But, reports Akbar Notezai from Islamabad, Pakistan’s fragile government also has to deal with separatist violence and local resentments at Beijing’s massive infrastructure projects.

Below are links to the web versions of our Daily Dispatch emails this week:

• August 3, 2023: China wants to make its own chip-making lasers…and is China’s enormous investment in Pakistan at risk?
• August 2, 2023: The Chinese government wants to limit screen time for kids…and eating Qin Gang’s watermelon
• August 1, 2023: Why Xi changed his rocket men…and floods in Beijing, the Patriotic Education Law, and more
• July 31, 2023: Super typhoon hits Beijing…and French Economy Minister schmoozing in China

Meanwhile, NGOs are trying to bridge Taiwan’s civil defense gap. Taiwan’s national civil defense teams are tasked with supporting the military during wartime, and disaster prevention and relief during peacetime. Critics say they’re woefully unprepared, Jordyn Haime reports from Taipei.

More on The China Project:

Beijing wants its own EUV light source, a key part of the chip supply chain: A homegrown extreme ultraviolet light source (EUV), or a less-complex alternative, could enable China to manufacture microchips to compete with those that power iPhones and ChatGPT.

China’s new Patriotic Education Law reveals Xi’s deepest fears for the future. China is attempting to codify patriotic education practices into law, with extensive reach. When passed, the implications will extend beyond its borders. Kathy Huang and Kay Zou of the Council on Foreign Relations have this analysis.

The Solomon Islands switched its diplomatic relations to Beijing from Taipei in 2019. The two countries have signed numerous deals since then, including a recent controversial policing pact, but resentment is stewing among the people, writes Alex Colville in this week’s China Ties.

G7 climate diplomacy — sweet words, but just debt and delays for the Global South: Geopolitics dominates the rhetoric on climate change in Washington D.C., but the developing world needs renewable energy, not debt and lectures on what a baddie China is, argues Cobus van Staden in the latest Southern View column.

We chatted about her new book on the subject, Red Memory: Living, Remembering and Forgetting China’s Cultural Revolution. This is an edited, abridged transcript of our recent conversation.

More on The China Project:

Mamatjan Juma is the deputy director of the Uyghur Service of Radio Free Asia. He is also an accomplished painter who uses his abstract expressionist art to help process painful news of his homeland, Ruth Ingram writes in this week’s Uyghur Bulletin.

The death of Princess Taiping and the demise of the Tang. Princess Taiping wielded all but ultimate power in the Tang court. It appeared that it was only a matter of time before she might succeed to the throne itself. As extraordinary as that feat would have been, it was a very ordinary miscalculation that led to her downfall, James Carter writes in part two of a two-part series.

Sanmao went against the stereotypes of her time. The original Chinese-language edition of Sanmao’s Stories of the Sahara was incredibly popular in Taiwan and Hong Kong, and throughout China, with the author representing a very different type of Chinese woman. The book is the latest on Paul French’s Ultimate China Bookshelf.

But it wasn’t until recent months that pickleball took off in China. Previously, cycling, camping, and Ultimate Frisbee all had their moments. This summer, trend-hoppers are embracing pickleball.

More on The China Project:

Using social media to engage Chinese youth about feminism and sexuality: Stephanie Yingyi Wang, an assistant professor in the Gender and Sexuality Studies Department at St. Lawrence University, talks about the challenges and rewards of LGBTQ activism in China.

Singer-songwriter Coco Lee (李玟 Lǐ Wén) was mourned by family and friends at a private ceremony in Hong Kong on Tuesday, after hundreds of tearful fans gathered to pay their final respects to the pop diva at a public vigil. The two-day memorial service took place nearly a month after Lee died at 48 following a suicide attempt at home that left her in a coma.

A look at Hong Kong’s Yau Ma Tei market: A rumor making its way around the internet claims that the historic Yau Ma Tei fruit market, Hong Kong’s largest, used to be run by the local crime syndicates known as triads. Nowadays, although the triads may mostly be gone, their freewheeling ethos remains.

On our TikTok channel:

Typhoon season is underway in China, and the most recent storm did serious damage.

China wants to implement new internet restrictions on kids’ screen time, but tech companies have concerns.

Pickleball has finally taken off in China, with lifestyle influencers pushing the latest trend in indoor sports.

On our podcasts:

A scorecard for the Biden administration’s China policies, and the disappearance of Qin Gang: This week’s Sinica Podcast is a discussion with a panel of experts.

Is China setting the agenda for debt restructurings in the Global South? Matt Mingey of the Rhodium Group shares his thoughts on the China-Global South podcast.

Debt and Kenya’s largest-ever infrastructure project — the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR), and the complex politics behind it are the subjects of the latest China in Africa podcast.