Long-time China watcher Bill Bishop also believes questions remain, writing in his widely followed Sinocism newsletter that “until there is a confirmed sighting of Qin at this new job we may never be able to sure this is really the outcome of his case”.

Fall from grace

Qin’s fall from grace has been accompanied by furious speculation, backed by reports in Western media, of an alleged extramarital affair he had with a Chinese TV correspondent while in the US, with whom he is said to have fathered a child.

At a consequential meeting of CCP heavyweights in July, known as the third plenum, Qin was formally removed from his post on the party’s elite central committee. But a statement confirming his departure referred to him as a “comrade”, a sign that he would remain a member of the party, unlike the two ousted defence ministers.

“The phrase ‘still a comrade’ is a godsend for him because it means he hasn’t been arrested for corruption and thrown out of the Communist Party,” said Lowy Institute senior fellow Richard McGregor.

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“But even then, we have no idea of where he is and what he’s doing and what his fate is, and the only indication of that is we have foreign news reports, which are, in turn contradicted by Hong Kong news reports.”

Adding to the intrigue, Victor Gao, the former translator for Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping, told Al Jazeera in a televised interview in August that Qin had been his friend for more than 20 years, but he was guilty of corruption and deserved his fate.

“He is somewhere in China. You will never see him,” Gao said, as he defended the CCP’s “merciless” crackdown.

Since becoming leader in 2012, Xi has presided over an anti-corruption campaign that has resulted in sweeping purges of CCP cadres, with a new annual record of investigations into at least 45 senior officials announced in 2023.

The People’s Liberation Army, and in particular the rocket force section, have been heavily targeted by the anti-graft drive. Experts say there are genuine issues with corruption and bribery in connection with military procurement that may have led to the downfall of the two defence ministers.

But as the crackdown has picked up speed, it has ensnared cadres found guilty of an expanding definition of corruption that extends to vaguer crimes of violating party discipline.

“They are being found guilty of formalism or bureaucratism or basically not implementing Xi’s directives in a way deemed to be satisfactory,” Thomas said.

Separately, Xi has consolidated his power in the party’s upper echelons, with rivals pushed out of the Politburo Standing Committee, the CCP’s top leadership body, in recent years.

“If you look at people have been purged, removed, forced out – there’s many different ways of doing it – it’s all about ensuring that he has people around him who are utterly loyal and doing what he wants,” McGregor said.

“You get with the program, or you’re out.”

Cut through the noise of federal politics with news, views and expert analysis from Jacqueline Maley. Subscribers can sign up to our weekly Inside Politics newsletter here.