China's Communist Party has opened a four-day, closed meeting that will decide whether military chief Mr Jiang Zemin completes a leadership succession by passing on his last post to party chief Mr Hu Jintao.
The behind-the-scenes rivalry between Mr Hu and Mr Jiang and their allies has emerged subtly into the open but analysts said it was unlikely to blow up into a full power struggle because both camps see stability as indispensable to sustainable growth in the world's seventh-biggest economy.
A plenum of the party's elite 198-member Central Committee convened on Thursday amid speculation that Mr Jiang (78) will hand over chairmanship of the Central Military Commission to Mr Hu (61) who replaced Mr Jiang as party general secretary in 2002 and as president in 2003.
Mr Hu's vision of perpetuating Communist Party rule through good governance - transparency and official accountability - is set to top the agenda as part of a crackdown on corruption.
Asked to comment on media reports that Jiang would step down, an official with the party's publicity department said: "Don't listen to rumours, listen to official channels."
The decisions of the plenum may not be known until it ends on Sunday, in keeping with decades of traditional party secrecy over changes in the top leadership.
The official declined to say where the meeting was being held but the venue is believed to be Beijing's exclusive Jingxi Hotel.