Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang has been out of public view for about three weeks due to an extramarital affair with a Chinese television journalist well-known across the country, Taiwanese media reported Saturday.
Photos and videos of Qin and the female reporter, who works for Hong Kong-based Phoenix TV, have recently circulated on Twitter. The ruling Communist Party’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection has reportedly asked the minister about the matter.
Beijing earlier claimed that Qin Gang was missing because of unspecified health reasons. It is not clear that this extramarital affair is the real reason, since many, if not most, of the high-level Chinese officials are having an affairs at any one time. In China, politics dominates everything.