None of the major newspapers in Chongqing ran a picture of the municipality's party chief, Bo Xilai, with their front-page coverage yesterday of his meeting with visiting Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
The omission raised further questions about Bo's political career, which was dealt a blow last week after the attempted defection of his right-hand man.
The banquet Bo threw for Harper on Saturday, as well as a meeting between the two, was the lead story for nearly all newspapers in the southwestern municipality yesterday.
But instead of featuring a typical picture of Bo and Harper together, the newspapers opted to run just a picture of Harper and his wife hugging a panda that will be sent to Canada or one of the panda alone.
A 1,500-word piece about Harper's visit in the Chongqing Daily, the municipality's party mouthpiece, did not mention Bo, although it gave other details of Harper's trip, ranging from visiting the pandas to trying to boost economic co-operation between Chongqing and Canada.
Chen Ziming, a Beijing-based political analyst, said the official Chongqing media's omission of Bo might reflect certain instructions from the central leadership about limiting publicity about him in the media after a deputy mayor, Wang Lijun, apparently sought help from the US consulate in Chengdu, Sichuan, last week.