A magazine publisher has been demoted and a journalist suspended after the publication of an interview with a Taiwanese historian who accused 'Father of the Nation' Sun Yat-sen of trying to make deals with Japan and who criticised China for trying to stir up nationalist sentiment.
Chen Zhong, president of the prestigious Nanfengchuang (South Wind Window) magazine, a Guangzhou-based biweekly under the Guangzhou Daily newspaper group, was transferred to a less important position in the group on Monday.
Zhao Lingmin, who wrote the story, was suspended from her position as director of a team of journalists, a reporter at the magazine said.
The question-and-answer-style story featuring Professor Tang Chi-hua from National Chengchi University in Taiwan was headlined, 'The rising China must say goodbye to 'revolutionary diplomacy''. It was published on July 25.
The reporter said officials from the group's editorial committee had visited the magazine on Monday to announce the decisions on Chen and Zhao. The officials also criticised the story as 'anti-government and anti-Communist Party'. They said Tang's comments about Sun were defamatory since Sun was a 'true revolutionary pioneer'.
Tang was quoted in the article as saying that Sun, having failed to win the support of warlords, suggested to Japan that he was willing to cede China's sovereignty over Manchuria and Hainan Island in exchange for Japanese officers leading the National Revolutionary Army against the Beiyang warlord government in Beijing. Later, to get Japan to send an army to help him, Sun offered to cede control of policing and taxation, and of Beijing, Tianjin and Inner Mongolia, Tang said.
'Even Yuan Shikai didn't dare abandon these rights,' Tang said, referring to the second president of the Republic of China.
