Hu Xijin, a prolific commentator who is China's best-known propagandist on the global stage, has announced his retirement as editor-in-chief of the nationalist tabloid the Global Times.
Writing on the Twitter-like Weibo on Thursday, Hu, 61, said he was going through "retirement procedures" but would stay on as a commentator for the paper, which is published by the ruling Communist Party's official People's Daily.
"From now on as the Global Times' special commentator, I will continue to contribute my efforts to the development of the Global Times and continue to do my utmost for the Party's news and public opinion work," he wrote.
While not an official government spokesman, Hu has been one of the loudest pro-China voices on Twitter, which is blocked in the country, defending the party line on subjects from handling COVID-19 to disputes with Australia and the United States.
His Twitter comments and regular newspaper column "Hu Says" have reflected what is widely perceived to be increasingly strident Chinese nationalism, and he is frequently quoted in foreign media.
This perception as the de facto voice of Beijing has been bolstered by his citing of well-placed sources on issues about which the government has maintained official silence, such as recently the fate of Chinese tennis player Peng Shuai.
After a foreign media outcry about Peng, who had accused a senior retired Communist Party official of sexual assault, Hu took to Twitter to say she was safe and well, and posted videos of her in a Beijing restaurant.
"This is perhaps one of Hu's last spin jobs - depicting his own departure from the Global Times as a 'retirement'," the China Media Project, a research programme associated with Hong Kong University, said on Twitter.
Hu was formerly a reporter for the People's Daily and covered the Bosnian war in the 1990s, the Global Times says on its website.
(Reporting by David Stanway; Editing by Tony Munroe and Clarence Fernandez)
