President Vladimir Putin of Russia sent a top diplomat to Beijing this past summer in order to deliver a warning to Chinese leader Xi Jinping about Western moles in his senior cabinet, Politico reported on Wednesday.
Andrey Rudenko, No. 2 at the Russian Foreign Ministry, told Xi that China's former foreign minister, Qin Gang, along with top officers in the country's military leadership, had been compromised by Western intelligence agencies, according to the report.
The explosive revelations cite "several people with access to high-level Chinese officials" and also claimed to shed light on Qin's ultimate fate. The claims have generated both intrigue and skepticism among China watchers, who have long struggled to glimpse the inner workings of Xi's rule over Beijing.
Qin, China's former ambassador to the United States, was given the top job at China's Foreign Ministry in December 2022. This past summer, just weeks after hosting Rudenko in Beijing in June, Qin abruptly disappeared from the public eye. In October, he and others were formally struck from elite Chinese politics in a one-sentence announcement.
Politico's report links Qin's case to the dismissal and investigation into leaders of the People's Liberation Army Rocket Force, which oversees the country's conventional and nuclear arsenal, pointing to a wider Stalin-esque purge in China's political circles—which is still ongoing.
"Russian Deputy Minister Rudenko's message to Xi included allegations that Qin and relatives of top rocket force officers had helped pass Chinese nuclear secrets to Western intelligence agencies," Politico said.
Around the time of Qin's disappearance, the PLA Rocket Force commander, Li Yuchao, along with his deputy and former deputy, Liu Guangbin and Zhang Zhenzhong, also went missing. Beijing eventually replaced them and, according to Hong Kong's South China Morning Post, placed all three under an anti-graft investigation.
The shake-up had already rocked the foundations of the elite military unit before the former Chinese defense minister, Li Shangfu, also went missing while in office and was later dismissed over suspected corruption charges.
The new revelations, if true, suggest a significant breach in China's diplomatic and military security.
China's embassy in Washington, D.C., and its Foreign Ministry didn't return separate requests for comment before publication. The Russian Foreign Ministry didn't immediately respond to Newsweek's written request either.
Perhaps most dramatic was Politico's claim that Qin had since died: "Two of these people claim that Qin died, either from suicide or torture, in late July in the military hospital in Beijing that treats China's top leaders."
It would be a dark twist to the tale that adds further complexity to existing rumors that suggest Qin—whose rise to the top was unexpectedly fast—had been involved in an extramarital affair with a Chinese state media journalist that continued until he was posted to Washington, a relationship that may have left him vulnerable to Western intelligence services.
This version of events was backed by credible reporting by the Financial Times, among others.
Neil Thomas, a researcher of Chinese politics at the Asia Society Policy Institute think tank, cast doubted on Politico's report in an X post on Wednesday, arguing that the unnamed author had mischaracterized Qin's prominence in Xi's inner circle, as well as the level of access he had to state secrets.
Among the various rumors about Qin's alleged death were claims of a heart attack, Thomas said. "Also heard he was coming back to work. There are always rumors. Can't know if true," he wrote.