The Curious Case of China’s Missing Foreign Minister

China's Foreign Minister Qin Gang attends a press conference at Media Center in Beijing on March 7, 2023. (Lintao Zhang/Getty Images)

Commentary

If it turns out to be true that China’s missing foreign minister is under “discipline inspection” by the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) own internal party police, he'll likely disappear into the little-known secret detention system known (to a few) as Liuzhi.

These strange disappearances, often lasting several months and sometimes up to the better part of a year, are nothing new. Remember former Interpol President Meng Hongwei? Or business moguls such as Bao Fan, Yim Fung, and Mao Xiaofeng? Or former Chinese Supreme People’s Court Judge Wang Linqing? Or China’s own super entrepreneur Jack Ma?

They all have something in common: They seemingly disappeared into the little-known, Guantanamo Bay-style, Party-run system for secret, incommunicado detention. Except in this case, it isn’t part of the state or judicial system but is run by the CCP without checks or balances.

The disappearance of Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang and the others mentioned above isn’t a bug in the system, as some would believe. They aren’t outliers that affect a rare victim here or there. This is the system.

China has had a system for disappearing people for up to half a year, incommunicado, at secret locations for quite some time. It’s called “residential surveillance at a designated location” or RSDL. It might sound innocuous, but it’s, in fact, feared far beyond being arrested and has been used en masse on rights defenders, local activists, and even celebrities such as Fan Bingbing. However, the CCP wasn’t content with just having RSDL. Despite that it allows for blocking all communications and prohibiting access to a lawyer, RSDL was and is part of the official judicial system, and the CCP, although having near full control, does have some very basic and flawed limitations to adhere to.

So enter the Liuzhi system.

Liuzhi functions more or less the same as the RSDL system but is run by the CCP’s internal police, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI). As it isn’t in any way, shape, or form part of the judicial system, the power over its targets is absolute. The body in question can’t be sued for torture or misconduct, and if authorities hold you longer than the supposed maximum of six months, there’s nowhere to go to make an appeal. There’s, of course, not even a theoretical right to a lawyer because it isn’t a judicial process—this is a crucial feature of the system, as several officials explained when it was introduced in the spring of 2018. And the system doesn’t only apply to Party members but also to state functionaries, those working in government agencies, state-owned enterprises, hospitals, “labor unions,” schools, and contractors.

Since the Liuzhi system was implemented, the body in charge, the CCDI, rarely releases any data, but on rare occasions, it releases some information at the provincial level. Based on a collection of such data, the CCDI has acknowledged using it on some 12,000 people since the system went into effect. A conservative estimate by Safeguard Defenders stands at roughly 77,000 people, or between 35 and 40 people per day.

The RSDL system, running in its current form since 2013, isn’t much better, with about 30,000 admitted cases by the state from 2020 to 2022—but more likely about 65,000 to 80,000 victims or about 30 people per day, according to the Spain-based nonprofit organization.

When a government uses what the U.N. has classified as enforced disappearances and what’s by any definition arbitrary detention, often accompanied by severe torture, on some 65 to 70 people every single day or on some 130,000-plus people since 2018, it’s no longer a bug in the system.

It is the system.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.