Emma Graham-Harrison “Where is Qin Gang? China’s foreign minister has not been seen in public for three weeks” https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/18/where-is-qin-gang-chinas-foreign-minister-has-not-been-seen-in-public-for-three-weeks
Fan Wang*1 “Qin Gang: China's 'missing' foreign minister sparks guessing game” https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-66125055
中国の秦剛外交部長が６月末から３週間に亙って公の場に姿を見せていない件について。
BBCの報道からコピーしておく；
The information vacuum has only heightened the speculation.In the past seven days, China's biggest search engine Baidu has seen a drastic surge in searches for Mr Qin's name. According to the Baidu Index, search for "Qin Gang" has grown by more than 5,000% in a week, and his name is being searched way more than some of the most famous Chinese celebrities.
One of the most widely shared theories online was that Mr Qin was being investigated over an alleged extramarital affair. When asked about the rumour on Monday, Ms Mao*2 said: "I don't know about the matter."
Predictably, this did nothing at all to quieten the chatter.
"People are interested in the story because they are curious about any secrets in the black box," says Wu Qiang, a Beijing-based China politics commentator.
Given the opacity of China's system, it's hard to tell whether Mr Qin is now really in trouble or if he could appear in front of the public again soon, says Ian Chong*3 from the National University of Singapore.But the fact that rumours about such a senior official are being discussed on the Chinese internet without complete censorship is quite unusual, he pointed out.
"The absence of censorship make people wonder if there is any truth to rumours about power struggles, corruption, the abuse of power and positions, and romantic relationships."
