UNPERSON ALERT: China’s defense minister not seen for two weeks.

There has been no sign of Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu in public for two weeks, touching off speculation about his fate.

With the start of President Xi Jinping’s third term in office, there has been a string of surprise personnel changes, including the replacement of Foreign Minister Qin Gang and the firing of a senior official from the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force.

Li was appointed to the Central Military Commission in October last year and became defense minister in March. Li has not been heard from since giving a speech at the China-Africa Peace and Security Forum in Beijing on Aug. 29.

A U.S. government official hinted it is likely Li’s absence is related to corruption.

“The PLA’s most enduring problem is too big for Xi to fix. These problems have a big impact on what Xi wants to achieve,” the official told Nikkei, using an acronym for the People’s Liberation Army.

Unless he has already assumed room temperature, Li Shangfu might eventually be un-unpersoned. Recall former president Hu Jintao, who was forcibly removed from a party meeting in October of last year, only to resurface in December: Hu Jintao reappears as China comes to standstill for late leader Jiang Zemin.