Chinese Vice-President Wang Qishan heads to Kazakhstan, and may miss party congress

Wang will lead a delegation to Astana to attend CICA summit on two-day trip, foreign ministry says
It could mean he will be absent from key political gathering in Beijing because of Covid-19 quarantine rules

China’s 20th Party Congress

Jack Lau

Published: 8:30pm, 11 Oct 2022

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Chinese Vice-President Wang Qishan will visit Kazakhstan on Wednesday, the foreign ministry said, and he could miss the upcoming Communist Party congress as a result of Beijing’s strict Covid rules.

Foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning told a regular press briefing on Tuesday that Wang “will lead a delegation to Kazakhstan to attend the sixth summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-building Measures in Asia [CICA] in Astana”.

The two-day trip is likely to mean Wang will be absent from the party congress that begins on Sunday. The five-yearly political event is expected to see President Xi Jinping secure a third term as party chief and a new leadership line-up unveiled.

All overseas arrivals in mainland China are subject to a “7+3” quarantine scheme – a week at a quarantine centre followed by three days of home isolation.

Beijing has not confirmed whether these rules apply to senior leaders on diplomatic trips. But all senior Chinese officials – including Xi and top legislator Li Zhanshu – who have travelled abroad in recent months have sat out official events until at least 10 days after their return to China, apparently for quarantine.

The party has not said how long the congress will last, but previously the gathering has run for a week – meaning it could end on October 22, nine days after Wang returns from Kazakhstan.

Wang is among the more than 2,000 people on a list of delegates to the congress. And as a member of the Politburo Standing Committee from 2012 to 2017, he is also expected to be a member of the presidium – a group of around 200 cadres that sets the agenda of the congress.

As Xi’s right-hand man, 74-year-old Wang was entrusted to tackle thorny issues such as corruption before he stepped down from the Politburo in 2017.

Wang has been vice-president since 2018, a role that has seen him representing the president at ceremonial events outside China, including Queen Elizabeth’s funeral, despite being well past the party’s unofficial retirement age of 68.

The CICA forum brings together a diverse group of 27 member countries – including India, Pakistan, Türkiye, Israel and South Korea – to discuss regional security, economic and technological cooperation. Observer nations include Japan and the United States.

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China has developed close ties with Central Asia. Last month, Xi visited Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, the largest economies in the region, on his first trip outside China since the early days of the pandemic.

Central Asian nations are also becoming more independent geopolitical players as the former Soviet republics become less aligned with the foreign policy positions of Russia. Kazakhstan abstained from voting in the United Nations to condemn Russian aggression in Ukraine, but it did oppose the suspension of Russia’s seat on the UN Human Rights Council.

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