The Chinese government has dismissed Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Sun Weidong, according to an announcement posted Tuesday by the Ministry of Human Resources. The brief notice, issued on behalf of the State Council, provided no explanation for the sudden removal.
Sun’s departure follows a pattern of high-level disciplinary actions within the Chinese bureaucracy. While the government has not disclosed specific charges against him, such removals frequently precede formal investigations into official misconduct.
Public records indicate Sun was active in his role until mid-March. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs website lists his final public engagements as meetings with the ambassadors of Malaysia and Brunei on March 13. Two days prior, he met with Pakistani Ambassador Khalil Hashmi to discuss bilateral cooperation, an event documented by Hashmi on the social media platform X.
A broad anticorruption campaign
The State Council notice also included the removal of An Lusheng, who served as deputy director of the National Railway Administration. These changes align with President Xi Jinping’s long-standing anticorruption initiative, which has targeted both high-ranking "tigers" and lower-level "flies" since its inception in 2012.
Official data released by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and National Supervisory Commission highlights the scale of this crackdown. Last year alone, the government investigated more than one million corruption cases and disciplined 938,000 individuals.
The year-end report from the commission detailed disciplinary measures against 69 provincial or ministerial-level officials. Thousands of other bureau-level, county-level, and township-level officials were also sanctioned as part of the sweep. The campaign has not spared the military, with several senior defense officials facing removal and investigation in recent months.
The government has not yet announced a replacement for Sun or provided a timeline for further details regarding his dismissal.