Hawkish PLA general at centre of microblogging storm

A hawkish PLA general, three days after his social networking debut, found himself in the middle of a microblogging storm over a strange post published under his name.

General Luo Yuan described his foray into social media as a move to occupy the “public opinion war zone”.

The post that caused all the trouble read, under his own name: “General Luo Yuan is a scholar as much as he is a soldier. His comments on the North Korea nuclear issue were right on target. The resolutions he proposed also made a lot of sense. He is awesome.”

The Sina Weibo post was preceded by a couple of others in which he suggested that China should impose “moderate sanctions” on North Korea.

The compliments he lavished on himself instantly went viral online, with many bloggers suspecting that he, or members of his staff, had mistakenly published them under his name, when in fact they were intended to be published under different names.

The self-laudatory post was quickly deleted, and a statement was published under Sina’s official military account claiming Luo’s account was hacked.

Many bloggers were not convinced nevertheless, with some even suspecting the Sina military account was also being run by Luo’s team.