The mainland's top Communist Party leaders have been meeting behind closed doors since Saturday to discuss how to enliven the country's 'cultural system', and to hear President Hu Jintao 's annual work report on behalf of the Politburo - the only two items on the agenda well publicised in advance.
However, as is customary with the annual plenary secretive session of more than 350 members of the Central Committee, people at home and abroad are more interested in issues that are not publicised but are surely discussed and debated during the four-day meeting in Beijing.
The leadership has kept tight wraps on the proceedings, and even the venue is supposed to be confidential. But it has become an open secret that the bulk of the meeting is being held at the military-run Jingxi Hotel in western Beijing because of the heavy security presence surrounding it. Customarily, the final day is held in the Great Hall of the People, which makes for better television when a communique is released to the public at the meeting's end.
This year's meeting is unlikely to be as dramatic as last year's, when the central committee voted to make Vice-President Xi Jinping one of the deputy vice-chairmen of the Central Military Commission, giving unmistakable signs that he would take over as the country's leader in 2012. Xi's promotion was not on the announced agenda of the plenum.
However, the country's most powerful officials still have plenty of issues to discuss and debate.
As has been well publicised, they will devote much time to discussing and approving a blueprint on how to deepen reforms of the cultural system, which is mostly led by the state-owned organisations, and on how to promote Chinese culture to bolster the country's soft power.
There is little doubt that discussion will take place on how to tighten controls over social media, particularly Twitter-like microblogs services, as authorities ramped up media comments on the need in the run-up to the meeting.