Chinese Whispers Intensify After ‘Mysterious Disappearance’ Of Nation’s Next Leader

“Where is Xi Jinping?” – that was the question on most Chinese lips and China observers on Monday after the nation’s Vice-President, and presumed leader-in-waiting, failed to show up for yet another scheduled meeting with a foreign dignitary – making it his fourth no-show since his last public appearance in Beijng on September 1.

“Where is Xi Jinping?” – that was the question on most Chinese lips and China observers on Monday after the nation’s Vice-President, and presumed leader-in-waiting, failed to show up for yet another scheduled meeting with a foreign dignitary – making it his fourth no-show since his last public appearance in Beijng on September 1.

On Monday, the Chinese Vice-President was reportedly scheduled to meet Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt during his visit to Bejing, but authorities then declined to comment after a scheduled photo-op with journalists was cancelled.

In addition, Xi also failed to attend a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last Wednesday; while the vice-president missed appointments over the last week with Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and a Russian official.

Though diplomats have said privately that Xi may be suffering from a bad back after a game of football sometime in the last week, Chinese netizens have begun to question why the vice-president has yet to make a single public appearance, especially ahead of the critical once-in-a-decade leadership change next month.

“Jinping, what’s the deal?” read one post on the popular Weibo microblogging service late Monday evening. “The entire country from top to bottom is paying attention,” the blogger added.

“The bottom line is that there is no reliable information to go on,” added Kenneth Lieberthal, a White House official during the Bill Clinton administration and now with the Brookings Institution think tank, to the Wall Street Journal.

[quote]”Something is amiss—otherwise, they would have found an opportunity for him to be seen. But whether he hurt his back or there is some other problem is something that at this point there is no way to know with confidence.”[/quote]

When questioned by the New York Times on Monday, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said: “We have told everybody everything.”

But Boxun.com, an overseas Chinese news website that broke numerous articles related to the Bo Xilai scandal, has now published a series of articles about Xi’s weeklong disappearance.

According to its most scandalous report, Xi and He Guoqiang, another senior party member, may have been hurt after two staged car accidents in Beijing on September 4, where supporters of Bo Xilai may have been behind the attack.

Russian President Vladimir Putin also caused a stir over the weekend with a cryptic remark that the start of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum leaders’ meeting in Vladivostok last week had to be delayed because Chinese president Hu Jintao needed to attend to an important but unspecified domestic issue.

The sensationalist rumours spreading around Xi Jinping’s whereabouts have even prompted Chinese state media to censor all references of Xi on the news and the Internet. Attempts to search for Xi’s name on Chinese micro-blogging sites were even blocked, while terms such as “back injury” were slowly being taken off Chinese search engines.

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According to Wang Xiangwei, the editor-in-chief of Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post and a longtime state media insider, Xi’s failure to show up for four scheduled meetings was slightly peculiar.

Wang said that Chinese leaders’ meetings were planned well in advance, making cancellations extremely rare.

[quote]“Baring Xi himself offering a very unlikely explanation today about his cancelled meetings last week, the outside world may never know the exact reason, and the rumours are unlikely to fade away,” Wang wrote in a editorial, as cited by the Associated Press.[/quote]

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The Wall Street Journal also noted that the Chinese Communist Party had in the past been quick to dismiss rumours about their party members’ health – including when stories emerged last year that former president Jiang Zemin had died following heart problems. The state-run Xinhua news agency were quick to dismiss the reports back then as “pure rumour,” while Jiang later appeared on state media.

Still, one well-connected political analyst in Beijing told the New York Times that whatever did happen to Xi, it was not serious enough to prevent him from assuming China’s top position.

“They (party officials) say it won’t affect the party meeting,” the analyst said.