British Foreign Secretary James Cleverley has postponed a trip to Beijing scheduled for late July, Bloomberg reported, citing sources.
Three interlocutors of the agency attribute the postponement of the visit to the disappearance of Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang, who has ceased to appear in public since the end of June. According to two sources, this was the main reason why Cleverly postponed the trip. A third interlocutor called this reason “one of several”.
According to Bloomberg, the British minister planned to visit Beijing later this month as part of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s efforts to improve relations between the countries.
Qin Gang disappeared from public space on June 25th. On that day, he met with Sri Lankan and Vietnamese colleagues Ali Sabri and Buitan Son. After that, no reports about the activities of the minister appeared on the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
On July 10, the head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell, was supposed to arrive in China, but his visit was canceled. The press service of Borrell said that Beijing reported the impossibility of receiving a European official at the scheduled time. The reason was not named. After the cancellation of the trip of the head of European diplomacy, Politico wrote about the minister’s possible health problems, but the department itself then said that they “did not hear” about it. A few days later, the ministry said that Qin Gang would miss the meeting of the foreign ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Indonesia due to his “physical condition”, but did not provide details.
Source: Rosbalt
Mario Twitchell is an accomplished author and journalist, known for his insightful and thought-provoking writing on a wide range of topics including general and opinion. He currently works as a writer at 247 news agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the industry.
