Confusion after Phoenix retracts report on callback of officials' children

The Hong Kong-based news website Phoenix has apologised to its readers and retracted a report that the offspring of mainland officials had been told to return to China within a year after completing their studies.

The report first appeared on Boxun on Sunday. Phoenix adapted the report almost without sourcing it to the overseas-based news aggregator, which tends to report unverified rumours.

Several Chinese-language newspapers in Hong Kong and mainland media including provincial news websites run by the national news agency Xinhua carried the report.

By Tuesday evening, censors put a brake to the report to prevent it from spreading further. References to the story were taken down from mainland Chinese websites, and searches for it have been blocked on microblogging platforms.

The retraction comes a month after another Hong Kong report - about a cab ride by President Xi Jinping - spread in mainland China. The Ta Kung Pao, a newspaper believed to be well connected in the mainland, had to retract the story and apologise.

According to the report on Tuesday, the Communist Party's chief corruption investigator Wang Qishan was set to announce new measures cracking down on officials sending their children abroad, the original report quoted "reliable sources" as saying.