China removed Qin Gang from his job as foreign minister after an investigation concluded he had an affair and fathered a child while serving as ambassador to the U.S., the Wall Street Journal reported.
Top officials in China were told in August that a Communist Party inquiry into Qin uncovered "lifestyle issues,” the newspaper reported Tuesday, citing people familiar with the situation whom it didn’t describe. That phrase usually means sexual misbehavior of some type in the parlance of Chinese officialdom.
Two of the people said the affair led to the birth of a child in the U.S.. The WSJ added that Qin is assisting a probe into whether the affair compromised national security. China is locked in an ideological battle with the U.S., its chief economic and geopolitical rival, which has seen Beijing intensify a national security drive.