Last Monday I pointed out that China’s foreign minister Qin Gang had suddenly vanished and hadn’t been seen in three weeks. Officially, he was said to be ill but unofficially there rumors that he’d done something potentially embarrassing to the party. Today, Qin was officially removed from his post and replaced, once again suggesting that whatever led to his disappearance was seen as a career-ending mistake.

Mr. Qin was abruptly removed as foreign minister on Tuesday after having disappeared from public view for 30 days. The move ended the career of a diplomat who had leaped to the top as one of President Xi Jinping’s most trusted rising stars.

“The suddenness and opacity surrounding Qin’s dismissal demonstrates the volatility that has now become a feature of China’s political system under Xi,” said Jude Blanchette, the holder of the Freeman Chair in China Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

The official decision that Mr. Qin had been replaced — and his spot taken by the former foreign minister, Wang Yi — capped weeks of speculation about his fate. Early on, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs claimed that Mr. Qin had health problems. But the brief announcement from the National People’s Congress Standing Committee, a council of China’s legislature that formally appoints senior government officials, did not mention health or any other reasons.

Qin Gang was only named ambassador to the US in 2021 and from there became foreign minister. His rise and his “wolf-warrior” style badmouthing of the US was directly attributed to Xi Jinping who selected him for the job. As a result his downfall is a potential embarrassment to Xi which no doubt is why he disappeared for a month before being dumped as quietly as possible.

The announcement that Qin Gang had lost his job was massive news here, but it was delivered, typically, without fanfare and with very little detail.

Just a few sentences on Xinhua wire service – which were then read out on the main evening TV news bulletin – spelt the dramatic end of Mr Qin’s time as the global public face of China, only half a year after he had been appointed.

About a month ago, he had disappeared from his normal duties and the official reason given for his absence was some sort of health issue.

However, as the weeks went on and he failed to re-emerge, speculation turned to the possibility that he was being punished for stepping out of line politically.

The secrecy about what led to Qin’s disappearance has only fueled speculation. Some have suggested that he was involved in an affair with a famous Chinese reporter. That idea was given support by the fact that the reporter in question also seems to have disappeared around the same time. But the truth is we’ll probably never know because the real answer, whatever it is, could embarrass the party and maybe even Xi himself. So, in a habit that famously goes back to Stalin, those who fall out of favor with the leader are simply air-brushed out of the picture.

By Tuesday evening, Qin’s profile had been scrubbed from the Foreign Ministry website, with the page where his portrait and welcome message had been earlier in the day replaced with a message saying “information being updated.”

All of this is happening at a moment when China’s relationships with the western world have been increasingly tense. China’s economy is struggling after being partly shut down for two years by zero-COVID. Xi Jinping has also been moving away from economic freedom and toward tighter, more explicitly communist control over just about everything. That includes tighter control over foreign investment which has many US and European companies worried. China is also in an awkward position over the war in Ukraine, simultaneously Russia’s best friend but also struggling to be seen as a neutral peacemaker on the world stage.

What all of this adds up to is anyone’s guess. As we’ve seen recently in Russia, autocratic governments have a difficult time maintaining power. What happened to Qin Gang is no where near as dramatic as Yevgeny Prigozin’s march on Moscow, but it may be a small sign that Xi Jinping is also struggling to maintain control in a system where looking strong is the only currency that matters.