The ruling Chinese Communist Party has fired one of its highest-ranking diplomats, who is now under investigation for "suspected violations" of discipline, a term that usually refers to corruption, China's foreign ministry announced on Friday.
Zhang Kunsheng was relieved of his post as assistant foreign minister, two ranks below foreign minister Wang Yi, after he was "suspected of violating discipline," the foreign ministry said in a brief statement.
Zhang is now "being investigated," it said.
Zhang, 57, who as the highest-ranking assistant foreign minister was in charge of protocol, is being replaced by chief spokesman Qin Gang.
He is the first high-ranking diplomat to fall in President Xi Jinping's ongoing anti-corruption campaign in which Xi has vowed to take down both high-ranking "tigers" and low-ranking "flies."
But although China's foreign ministry is frequently seen in media reports owing to its daily news briefings for journalists, it controls no important assets or resources and is a fairly minor player in the corridors of power in Beijing.
Zhang's dismissal comes after China's ambassador to Iceland "disappeared" amid reports in overseas Chinese media that he had been arrested for spying. But there has been no official confirmation of his fate.
‘The entire system’
According to Beijing-based political commentator Zha Jianguo, Xi's campaign will never eradicate corruption, however, because there are so few officials who don't engage in it.
"We're not talking just one or two corrupt officials here; the entire system is corrupt," Zha said. "Their interests are entangled in cliques, and their rackets are often interconnected."
"The moment you expose this, it becomes an ever-expanding phenomenon that you can never kill," he said.
Analysts have warned that Xi's anti-graft campaign is highly selective, and whether a person is targeted depends on if they have the right friends in high places.
Guangzhou-based writer and commentator Ye Du said Zhang was likely being targeted for "being on the wrong team."
"This is part of a power struggle...that has nothing to do with what ministry the official comes from," Ye said.
"A lot of the people targeted in the anti-corruption campaign in Beijing lately have been members of the 'Shanxi clique,'" Ye said, adding that the political allegiance of officials is more important than their official job title.
Zha agreed, saying that the anti-corruption campaign is the product of the rule of powerful personalities rather than the rule of law.
"A genuine anti-corruption campaign under the rule of law would have to target Chinese Communist Party leaders, as well as all of the people under their protection," he said. "It would need to go after corruption wherever it found it, and it would have little to do with how resolute the leadership was."
"It wouldn't be about who they want to target, with the judiciary and public opinion and media commentary trailing along in their wake," Zha said.
He said no real change looks likely while power remains concentrated in the hands of a single-party regime.
China's anti-corruption campaign investigated 42 "tigers" last year, of whom 28 were of provincial rank or higher.
Xi pledged in his "state of the nation" address on Thursday that the campaign would continue with the same level of intensity in 2015 until corruption was "eradicated."
Reported by Yang Fan for RFA's Mandarin Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.