The editor of a prominent Party journal has been suspended because of an op-ed he wrote for The Financial Times following Pyongyang’s defiant third nuclear test in February. From Jane Perlez at The New York Times:
The editor, Deng Yuwen, told the South Korean paper Chosun Ilbo that the Foreign Ministry had called the Communist Party’s Central Party School in Beijing to complain about his article in the British paper, The Financial Times. It argued that China’s strategic alliance with North Korea was “outdated” and that the wayward ally was no longer useful as a buffer against United States influence.
[…] Because of Mr. Deng’s stature — he is deputy editor of Study Times, a weekly journal of the Central Party School, which trains rising officials — the article garnered attention in Washington and Europe. Some took it as a sign that perhaps the new Chinese government led by President Xi Jinping was fed up with North Korea after its third nuclear test in February and that it would modify its support.
Chosun Ilbo quoted Mr. Deng as saying in a telephone interview: “I was relieved of the position because of that article, and I’m suspended indefinitely. Although I’m still being paid by the company, I don’t know when I will be given another position.”
[…] So far, Chinese government policy makers have shown little sign of paying heed to Mr. Deng’s advice on Pyongyang.
Last year, Deng wrote ‘The Ten Grave Problems Facing China‘, described by Geremie Barmé as “perhaps the most damning list of political failures of the Hu-Wen era that has appeared in a mainland publication.”
