In a now infamous tweet, Argentinian President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner mocked the accent of Chinese people speaking Spanish during an official visit to the People’s Republic of China, upsetting media and social media users around the world.

The president, who was accompanied by Argentinian entrepreneurs, intended to forge a strategic economic agreement with China while there, according to an official press release:

“The strategic alliance and the commercial exchange with China will have the strong participation of the business world,” President Cristina Fernández told Chinese and Argentinian entrepreneurs at the close of deliberations at the Corporate Argentinian-Chinese Forum.

The president delivered her speech this noon (Argentinian early morning hours) in the presence of more than 100 Argentinian and 400 Chinese entrepreneurs at the end of the Corporate Argentinian-Chinese Forum at Shangri-La Hotel in Beijing, China.

The same day, the president published a tweet on her Twitter account making fun of the Chinese accent, in which she switched out the letter R in the words arroz (rice) and petróleo (petroleum) for an L:

Más de 1.000 asistentes al evento… ¿Serán todos de “La Cámpola” y vinieron sólo por el aloz y el petlóleo? …

— Cristina Kirchner (@CFKArgentina) February 4, 2015

Over 1,000 people attended the event… Are they all from “The Campola” and did they only come for the “lice” and the “petloleum”?…

Kirchner also stuck an L in “Campora“, a youth organization that supports Kirchner and supported the government of her husband, Néstor Kirchner, before her.

In Argentina, where people are still reeling over the suspicious death of attorney Alberto Nisman, who was hours away from testifying against Kirchner’s government, accusing her and others of corruption, the head of state’s tweet generated a whirlwind of reactions.

Read more: globalvoicesonline.org – Written by Laura Schneider, Translated by Gabriela García Calderón