British Foreign Secretary James Cleverley has postponed a trip to Beijing scheduled for late July, Bloomberg reports, citing sources.

Three sources of the agency attribute the postponement of the visit with the disappearance of Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang, who has stopped appearing in public since the June 25, when he met with his colleagues from Sri Lanka and Vietnam. According to two sources, this was the main reason why Cleverley postponed the trip.

Bloomberg writes that the British minister was planning to visit Beijing later this month as part of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's efforts to improve relations between the countries.