Published: April 1, 2013
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 It argued that China’s strategic alliance with North Korea was “outdated” and that the wayward ally was no longer useful as a buffer against United States influence.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 and was taken by some 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.
In a telephone interview with Chosun Ilbo, Mr. Deng was quoted as saying: “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.”
Mr. Deng declined to comment on Monday afternoon.
So far, Chinese government policy makers have shown little sign of paying heed to Mr. Deng’s advice on Pyongyang.
China backed a new round of sanctions imposed by the United Nations in the wake of the third nuclear test. But as is often the case with sanctions, the question became how seriously China would enforce them.
Official Chinese statements routinely say that sanctions are not the solution to the North Korean problem.
Three senior United States officials have come to Beijing in the past two weeks to request enforcement of the United Nations sanctions and to ask that China stop doing business with the North Korean Trade Bank.
The American officials left Beijing without announcing any specific agreement with China on enforcement.
Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew, who met with Mr. Xi, said after two days of talks in March, “The U.S. views the provocative actions of North Korea as very serious, and we will continue to pursue methods available to change the policy perspective in Pyongyang.” He added, “We share a common objective of a denuclearized Korean Peninsula, and we will continue to discuss it.”
Shortly after Mr. Lew’s visit, the United States under secretary of the Treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence, David S. Cohen, and the State Department coordinator for sanctions policy, Daniel Fried, went to Beijing to discuss sanctions enforcement in more detail. They left without any announcements.
Mr. Deng’s article in The Financial Times did not deal with sanctions, but it offered a harsh critique of the Chinese government’s policy of support for North Korea and, in particular, its new leader, Kim Jong-un.
“It is entirely possible that a nuclear-armed North Korea could try to twist China’s arm if Beijing were to fail to meet its demand or if the U.S. were to signal good will toward it,” Mr. Deng wrote.
North Korea, he argued, did not view its relationship with China through the same lens of “friendship sealed in blood” that came from Chinese soldiers’ fighting and dying in the Korean War against the United States. “North Korea does not feel like this at all toward its neighbor,” he wrote.
And in a response to the Chinese policy of urging North Korea to overhaul its economy, Mr. Deng wrote: “Once the door of reform opened, the regime could be overthrown. Why should China maintain relations with a regime and a country that will face failure sooner or later?”
While working at Study Times, Mr. Deng also developed a reputation as a combative commentator for other news publications less bound to official orthodoxy. He wrote an article last year on the failures of President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, both of whom recently retired, saying that during their decade in power they had squandered chances to make much-needed changes.
