China has removed the defence minister, Li Shangfu, and ousted ex-foreign minister Qin Gang from its cabinet, according to state media, in a major reshuffle of top leadership. The news came after months of speculation about the country’s cabinet, including confusion over the abrupt removal of Qin from office in July without explanation and the months-long absence of Li from public view. Both Qin and Li are believed by experts to have been personally selected for their roles by the president, Xi Jinping. State broadcaster CCTV announced the removals in its regular evening bulletin on Tuesday, but did not offer reasons for the ministers’ fall from grace. No replacement for Li as defence minister was announced. Previously it had been reported that the US government believed Li was under investigation and had been stripped of his ministerial duties, but China had refused to comment on the matter. Li travelled to Russia in August to attend a security conference near Moscow on 15 August. Two days later, the government of Belarus released handout photographs of Li meeting with the Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko, in Minsk. But since then he has vanished from public view. Li’s confirmed removal means there is no apparent host for China’s regional security dialogue next week, the Xiangshan forum, which is due to be attended by representatives from the US Department of Defense. Experts said Tuesday’s announcement deepened the recent uncertainty around China’s top leadership. Neil Thomas, Chinese politics fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute, said the recent upheaval “hints at severe deficiencies in the vetting process for top officials at the 20th party congress last year, possibly due to lower-level officials not wanting to push back against Xi’s preferred candidates”. But the removal of Li and Qin is “unlikely to significantly undermine (Xi’s) political authority, as neither was part of his true inner circle”, Thomas said. “Their purge reinforces to other officials the importance of retaining Xi’s favour.” As well as being removed as defence minister, Li has also lost his position on the state council, China’s cabinet. Qin, who was removed as foreign minister by Beijing’s top lawmaking body after just 207 days in the job, has now also been stripped of his cabinet position. He was replaced by Wang Yi, a veteran diplomat who served as foreign minister before Qin and who outranked him in the Chinese government hierarchy. CCTV also announced on Tuesday that the science and technology minister, Wang Zhigang, and the finance minister, Liu Kun, had been removed from their posts. They will be replaced by the current ministry of science and technology party secretary, Yin Hejun, and finance ministry party secretary, Lan Fo’an, respectively. Adam Ni, publisher of the China Neican newsletter, said the dismissals showed “elite politics at play”. “Leadership instability continues unabated despite the cementing of paramount power by Xi,” he said, adding “all those below Xi with the exception of very few are subjected to quick falls from power”. “They can be picked and they can be discarded,” Ni said.