According to a report by Reuters on the 15th, Liu Jianchao (61), the Director General of the International Liaison Department of the Communist Party of China, who had been mentioned as the next Minister of Foreign Affairs in China, has been detained, and Sun Haiyan (53), the first female Deputy Director General of the International Liaison Department, has also been arrested.
Reports indicate that Deputy Director General Sun was detained alongside Director General Liu earlier this month. While the specific reasons for their detention have not been confirmed, it is known that Deputy Director General Sun has been arrested and is under investigation related to issues concerning Director General Liu.
Deputy Director General Sun has primarily been responsible for diplomacy with Southeast Asian countries and served in Singapore from May 2022 to July 2023. The last time he was officially seen was at a reception hosted by the Nepalese embassy in Beijing on the 1st of this month.
Previously, the U.S. Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on the 9th that Director General Liu is currently under investigation after being detained. Director General Liu has been in charge of overseeing relations with foreign political parties and socialist countries since 2022. Last year, he also visited Washington, D.C., and New York. WSJ pointed out that the party leadership may have been uncomfortable with Director General Liu's actions, which seemed to overtly reveal his ambitions for the next Minister of Foreign Affairs.