The layout of the People's Daily - usually grey and boring - featured a song yesterday: sheet music. If not unprecedented, it was certainly rare for the Communist Party organ.
It was part of a long article contributed by Li Lanqing, who retired as vice-premier in 2003, about the remarkable contribution by former president Jiang Zemin to the restoration of a lost English version of the lyrics of Italian composer Enrico Toselli's famous Serenade as it was sung in the 1930s and '40s in schools in Shanghai and the nearby Yangtze River Delta.
Hard though it may be for outsiders to deduce, the almost half-page article about his memory of old song lyrics can only mean one thing: Jiang is signalling his eagerness to be involved in the Communist Party's coming power transition.
President Hu Jintao is scheduled to step down as party chief next year. The likeliest candidate to replace him, all official arrangements indicate, is Vice-President Xi Jinping .
Some people in political circles in Beijing have said that Jiang and the man who served as his vice-president, Zeng Qinghong, are seeking to influence the make-up of the next leadership team.
In yesterday's article, Li revealed a letter Jiang had written him, dated August 15, showing his version of the lyrics he had restored during his English language study tour to the seaside resort of Beidaihe last summer - after consulting official translators.