Liu Jianchao, the head of the Communist Party's International Department and a top Chinese diplomat, has been taken into custody for questioning, a Wall Street Journal report on Sunday, August 10, 2025, stated.
The 61-year-old government official was detained in late July after returning to Beijing from an international assignment, the newspaper reported, citing sources familiar with the situation. However, no confirmation of his detention has been made officially.
As CPC's Minister of the International Department, Liu is considered a possible future foreign minister and is said to have close personal connections with President Xi Jinping.
Mr. Liu recently headed a CPC delegation to the Liberation Movements Summit in South Africa on July 28, according to official Chinese media.
The detention of Liu has sent shockwaves through China's official and diplomatic circles, particularly in light of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Tianjin later this month, August 31 to September 1.
Though Wang Yi is presently China's Foreign Minister, Liu has significant clout with the foreign policy of China as the head of the CPC's International Department.
Significantly, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar had a meeting with Liu on July 14 during his visit to Beijing to review progress in normalization of relations after the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-President Xi meeting in Russia last year that broke a four-year freeze due to the military confrontation in eastern Ladakh.
Even though reports of his detention surfaced, Liu's photos and records of his overseas meetings are still on the official website of the CPC's International Department.
This comes after the removal of former Foreign Minister Qin Gang in 2023, who was also regarded as Xi Jinping's protégé. The reasons for his removal were not made public.
Upon Qin's departure, Wang Yi, a CPC Politburo member and Director of the Central Commission for Foreign Affairs Office, was promoted to Foreign Minister—a position he had earlier relinquished to facilitate Qin's rise.
Born in Jilin province, Liu studied international relations at Oxford University before joining China's foreign ministry, where he had served in various capacities such as spokesman.
He has also been a member of the CPC's Central Discipline Commission (CDS), which has probed thousands of officials on allegations of corruption and disciplinary offenses since Xi took charge as party leader in 2012. Indicted by the CDS included two Defense Ministers and many military generals.
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