An article published by the state-run Xinhua news, and republished by numerous Chinese news outlets, referred to Chinese President Xi Jinping as “China’s last leader” before being pulled from circulation.

The typo originally appeared in an article called “Recollections of a Reporter: Looking High and Low for China’s Confidence in its Economy at the Kuntai Hotel”. One section of the text had originally appeared as:

China’s last leader Xi Jinping said at this year’s two sessions that the development of China will temporarily have its ups and downs, but the long-term prognosis is that the mighty wind of the east will prevail.

The article was revised within an hour of publication, having changed the text to “China’s highest leader Xi Jinping”. Within 12 hours, both the original and corrected versions of the article disappeared from Xinhua’s news feed. Other Chinese news media that had carried the story, such as iFeng, also removed the offending article from publication.

It is not clear who originally authored the article.

Xinhua’s gaffe comes after President Xi called for China’s media to fall in line with Party principles. Xi has said that China’s news media should “take on the surname of the party”, signifying a closer relationship between the CCP and the news media that reports on it.

At the same time, a number of media scandals relating to freedom of expression have attracted a lot of attention. The editor of a southern Chinese newspaper was fired after hiding a secret message criticizing the authoritarian control of Chinese news media in one of its headlines. In another instance, prominent blogger Ren Zhiqiang’s Weibo account was frozen after speaking out against the erosion of personal freedom of speech.