Four Chinese state-run news agency staff have been suspended for a typographical error suggesting President Xi Jinping had resigned, reports said today.

Two reporters from the South Africa department and two editors at the China News Service were punished for an article written inaccurately on Xi’s address to the China-Africa summit in Johannesburg.

The Chinese word for ‘speech’ was replaced with ‘resignation’, the Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy said today.

Some 20 state-run media carried the report yesterday until a correction appeared about one hour, 20 minutes later, the Hong Kong-based advocacy group said.

Although the characters are different, the word for ‘speech’ in its mainland Chinese pinyin romanisation is ‘zhici’ - whereas ‘resignation’ is ‘cizhi’.

The word processor converts pinyin to Chinese characters.

The error occurred two days after the official Xinhua news agency misspelled US President Barack Obama’s name in a report about him meeting Xi, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported today.

- dpa