Rumours swirl over dramatic fall of Xi loyalist Qin Gang

Sacked foreign minister's rise was linked to his ties to president; his disappearance and dismissal have caused a scandal

The dismissal of Qin Gang, a key Xi Jinping loyalist, from the post of Chinese foreign minister is shaping up to be one of the country's biggest political scandals in years. Qin spent just seven months in the role, the shortest tenure of any to have served, and mysteriously disappeared from view last month. He was sacked on Tuesday, replaced with his predecessor Wang Yi, and is yet to reappear in public.

Political purgings - if that is what has happened to Qin - are not rare in China. Thousands of officials, including high-ranking political rivals of Xi, have been targeted by anti-corruption campaigns or shuffled out of view - sometimes literally, as in the case of the former president Hu Jintao, who was physically removed from his seat at a Communist party meeting in Beijing last year.