Quotes of the Day

Every appearance by Chinese leaders is political. They enter rooms in single file according to rank, and newspapers place photos of senior officials higher on the page than those of lesser rivals. So strict are the rules that when Hu Jintao took over as Party chief from Jiang Zemin two years ago, Beijing's print media waited four hours for instructions from propaganda officials on whose picture to run at the top. (They ran side by side.) The two leaders are now thought to be jockeying for power; Jiang remains chairman of the Central Military Commission, and a key Party meeting is scheduled for this month.

Thus a set of photos, published last month during celebrations for the 100th birthday of late Communist Party patriarch Deng Xiaoping, raises questions about the relationship between the two men. The original image, published in the state-run Oriental Outlook magazine in the last week of August, shows Hu shaking hands with Deng in 1992 while Jiang stands behind them, as if giving introductions. But in the other two photos, which appeared in Shanghai's Wen Hui Bao newspaper on Aug. 13 and in a set of pictures celebrating Deng's centenary, Jiang has vanished. At least one of the doctored photos was released by the Xinhua news agency—which implies either official complicity or a massive goof. Either way, "it can only be embarrassing for Jiang," says an editor from a Party-run newspaper, because "someone very publicly wants him to disappear."

• Matthew Forney | Beijing
• Jiang Zemin gets painted out of the picture in a mysterious set of photos