BEIJING - The disappearance of China’s Defence Minister, the latest in a string of upheavals in the country’s top ranks, is stoking uncertainty about President Xi Jinping’s rule as an internal security clampdown trumps international engagement.

The growing unpredictability could affect the confidence other countries place in the leadership of the world’s second-biggest economy, diplomats and analysts say.

Defence Minister Li Shangfu, who has missed meetings including at least one with a foreign counterpart since he was last seen in late August, is under investigation in a corruption probe into military procurement, Reuters reported last Friday.

Newly installed Foreign Minister Qin Gang vanished with scant explanation in July, the same month as an abrupt shake-up of the military’s elite Rocket Force, which oversees China’s nuclear arsenal.

As Mr Xi focused inwards, he caused concern among foreign diplomats in September by missing a Group of 20 summit in India, the first time the President has skipped the global leaders’ gathering in his decade in power.

Faced with the growing uncertainties, some diplomats and analysts are calling for a hard look at the true nature of his regime.

“Clear-eyed assessments are needed – this isn’t just a question of whether China is a partner or a competitor, it is a source of economic, political and military risk,” said Mr Drew Thompson, a former Pentagon official who is now a scholar at the National University of Singapore (NUS).

Due to a lack of transparency surrounding the changes, various explanations are plausible, “and this feeds the crisis of confidence that is brewing around China”, he added.

China’s Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Saturday.

Proximity isn’t patronage

Regarding Defence Minister Li’s disappearance and investigation, a ministry spokeswoman told reporters last Friday that she was not aware of the situation.

The State Council and Defence Ministry did not respond to requests for comment.

Since his appointment in March, General Li has been the public face of China’s expanding military diplomacy, expressing concern over US military operations during a high-profile security conference in June and visiting Russia and Belarus in August.

He had been expected to host an international security meeting in Beijing in October and represent the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) at a meeting of regional defence chiefs in Jakarta in November.

With corruption long permeating China’s military and state institutions, some analysts and diplomats believe Mr Xi’s anti-graft crackdowns mark political purges across the Communist Party.

“Regardless of the reason… the sense that this could keep happening could have an impact on foreign actors’ confidence in engaging with their Chinese counterparts,” said Ms Helena Legarda, lead analyst with the Mercator Institute for China Studies in Berlin.

The Li upheaval is unusual for its speed and its reach into President Xi’s hand-picked elites.

“This is all so sudden and opaque. One thing we can now see is that proximity does not equate to patronage in Xi’s world,” said Singapore-based security analyst Alexander Neill, an adjunct fellow at Hawaii’s Pacific Forum think-tank.

Continuity risk

Although not in a direct command position, Gen Li serves on Mr Xi’s seven-man Central Military Commission and is one of China’s five state councillors, a Cabinet position that outranks regular ministers. Some scholars believe he is close to General Zhang Youxia, who sits above him on the commission and is the President’s closest ally in the PLA.

Gen Li, sanctioned by Washington in 2018 for an arms deal with Russia, shunned a meeting with United States Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin during Singapore’s Shangri-la Dialogue security conference in June, where a handshake marked their closest interaction.

Mr Austin and other US officials are keen to resume high-level talks between the two militaries as regional tensions roil.

But Beijing counters that it wants Washington to be less assertive in the Asia-Pacific.

Regional envoys say deeper Chinese military diplomacy is vital, particularly with the US, but also with other powers, as China increasingly deploys forces around Taiwan – the democratically governed island it claims – and across disputed parts of the East and South China seas.

If Gen Li’s fate “reflects Xi’s increasingly inward focus, it is not good for those of us who want greater openness and lines of communication with China’s military”, said one Asian diplomat.

NUS political scientist Chong Ja Ian said that as the PLA has had an unprecedented level of military engagement with South-east Asian forces in 2023, the recent swift changes back in Beijing “spur speculation and some concern about the continuity of policy”.

“A shake-up of the military at this time is likely to draw attention, given the heightened activity of the PLA near Taiwan and the East China Sea, as well as stepped-up paramilitary activity in the South China Sea, since such actions create potential risk of accidents, escalation and crises,” he said. REUTERS