Beijing, August 12: Senior Chinese diplomat Liu Jianchao, head of the Communist Party’s powerful International Department and a close ally of President Xi Jinping, has been detained for questioning, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday, citing people familiar with the matter.
The 61-year-old was taken away in late July after returning to Beijing from an overseas trip, the report said. There has been no official confirmation of his detention.
Liu, widely seen as a potential future foreign minister, wielded significant influence over China’s foreign policy. He recently led a party delegation to the Liberation Movements Summit in South Africa on July 28 and met Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar in Beijing on July 14 to discuss normalising relations after last year’s meeting between Xi and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The news sent shock waves through China’s official and diplomatic circles, coming just weeks before the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Tianjin from Aug. 31 to Sept. 1.
A veteran diplomat who studied at Oxford University, Liu previously served as spokesman for the foreign ministry and worked at the party’s Central Discipline Commission, which has investigated thousands of officials for corruption since Xi took power in 2012.
His reported detention comes after the unexplained 2023 removal of then–Foreign Minister Qin Gang, another Xi protégé, who was replaced by Wang Yi.
