Chinese Editor Suspended for Article on North Korea

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/02/world/asia/chinese-suspend-editor-who-questioned-north-korea-alliance.html?_r=0

BEIJING — A well-known editor of an influential Communist Party journal said Monday that he had been suspended after writing an article for a British newspaper saying that China should abandon its ally North Korea.

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 It argued that China’s strategic alliance with North Korea was “outdated” and that the wayward ally was no longer useful as a buffer against United States influence.

Mr. Deng also wrote in the article, published on Feb. 27, that the government in Pyongyang could use nuclear weapons against China.

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.