Editor made to quit after Chinese army website post

A CHINESE newspaper editor has been forced to quit his job after comments were posted on his newspaper’s website mocking the ruling Communist Party’s insistence that it maintain control of the nation’s military.

Yu Chen confirmed yesterday that he was no longer the Southern Metropolitan’s editor. He declined to discuss the reason or other details in a sign of the sensitivity of the matter.

“Let’s just leave it at that,” Mr Yu said in a telephone interview.

However, activist friend Hu Jia said Mr Yu told him he stepped down after the remarks were posted by an unknown person, a claim repeated by online media based overseas. The remarks said sarcastically that if the party insists on full control over the military, then the people should have the right to form their own army.

The People’s Liberation Army was established in 1927 to battle Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists in China’s 22-year civil war. After largely sitting out Japan’s Second World War invasion, it re-emerged to lead the communists to victory in 1949 and has remained the party’s army ever since, defending its interests during the chaotic 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution and in suppressing pro-democracy protests in 1989.

While the comments posted on the newspaper’s site weren’t directly attributed to Mr Yu, authorities often hold editors and webmasters responsible for content and comments posted to their sites and expect offending material to be swiftly removed.

The incident underscores the Communist Party’s concerns over scattered calls to place the 2.3 million-member People’s Liberation Army under government, rather than party, control. Such a move could substantially diminish the party’s overall influence over Chinese society and weaken its hold on the ultimate lever of control.