Chinese state media has hinted that an annual conclave of senior leaders is happening at the resort of Beidaihe, in a report saying the head of the organisation department had visited government workers holidaying there.
Traditionally top party leaders visit the coastal town on northeast China's Bohai Sea every summer on an unofficial retreat to discuss personnel moves and policy ideas behind closed doors.
President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang have not appeared on the main evening news since the start of the month, when normally they are on almost daily, suggesting they may have been in Beidaihe.
In a short dispatch on Saturday evening, the official Xinhua news agency said that Chen Xi, who as head of the Organisation Department oversees the ruling Communist Party's personnel decisions, had been entrusted by Xi to visit "vacationing experts" in Beidaihe. It said Vice Premier Hu Chunhua had accompanied Chen.
Chen told the experts to maintain their "strong patriotism" and to use it as motivation to contribute to the realisation of the "great rejuvenation of China", according to the Xinhua report.
The retreat is often kept secret by the party.
This year's meeting would be the first since Xi cemented his power by scrapping presidential term limits at the start of his second five-year term in March.
Since then he has faced an escalating trade war with the US, development pains with his signature Belt and Road infrastructure initiative, and disquiet among sections of the political elite over the Communist Party's increasingly nationalistic rhetoric.
