Kim Jong-il is travelling by train back to North Korea after spending Thursday in the Chinese capital begging for more economic help. But you wouldn't know that for sure from reading China's state-controlled press, which has reported only that others are saying the North Korean leader came to Beijing for a meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao.
The Korea Central News Agency, Pyongyang's pied piper of propaganda, has said even less about Mr. Kim's movements, which is remarkable considering KCNA reports breathlessly every time Mr. Kim visits a factory, watches a concert or makes an utterance on the glories of his country's very particular form of socialism. For instance, KCNA said Mr. Kim spent Saturday listening to performances of such classics as Where Are You, Dear General? and Pyongyang, Where He Is that were reportedly composed and performed "with profound reverence" for Mr. Kim by a joint Russian-Korean orchestra.
Since then, nothing. KCNA has reported on how ordinary people from Tajikistan to Bulgaria were busy admiring Mr. Kim's written works over the past few days, but has made no mention since Saturday as to just where the Dear Leader might be.
But in an age of ubiquitous cellphone cameras and social-networking sites such as Twitter, the only ones actually in the dark about where Mr. Kim is right now are those in North Korea, and perhaps some of the more remote parts of China, who still turn to services such as KCNA and China's Xinhua agency for their information.
Secrecy measures that barely worked in 2006, when the 68-year-old Mr. Kim last travelled to Beijing, had no chance in 2010. Since crossing the border into China on Monday, Mr. Kim's every move has been followed with a doggedness and irreverence that would make Hollywood paparazzi proud.
South Korea's Yonhap news agency, which seemingly has a source or sources inside Mr. Kim's massive entourage, has been reporting the trip almost hour-by-hour since the North Korean leader's 17-car train first started rolling north from Pyongyang. Japanese news agencies and television networks such as CNN and BBC World have delighted in showing television footage - taken by an unknown cameraperson - of a frail-looking Mr. Kim standing in front of his hotel in the eastern port city of Dalian, the first of two overnight stops his train made en route to Beijing.
His trademark bouffant hairdo was thinner than in years past, as was his face. Mr. Kim appeared to be dragging his left leg, taken by some as proof that he did indeed suffer a stroke two years ago, as several intelligence agencies have concluded.
Analysts believe Mr. Kim is in China - which accounts for nearly three-quarters of his isolated country's trade with the outside world - to ask for aid after a disastrous currency revaluation earlier this year that dealt another blow to North Korea's already moribund economy. He may also be looking for guarantees of Beijing's support in the escalating crisis over the sinking last month of a South Korean warship as Seoul continues to compile evidence suggesting that it was a North Korean torpedo that sank the ship, killing 46 sailors.
(There are also reports - unsupported so far by photographic evidence - that Mr. Kim's youngest son and heir apparent, Kim Jong-un, is on the trip so that Mr. Kim can introduce him to the Chinese leadership.) In return for more aid, the Chinese government, the last major power still backing Mr. Kim's regime, is expected to push North Korea to rejoin the stalled six-party talks aimed at getting the country to give up its nuclear weapons.
Sensitive stuff, and a conversation both Beijing and Pyongyang obviously wanted to have without the world watching. But even China's state-run Global Times newspaper was forced to concede the obvious on Thursday when it ran a front-page story acknowledging that Mr. Kim "reportedly arrived in Beijing yesterday." Though the Global Times surely had access to better-placed sources than any foreign news organization, the paper cited a Japanese media report that said Mr. Kim was staying at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in the city and attributed to foreign media the observation that the area around Tiananmen Square was lined with soldiers Wednesday night, often a sign that Chinese President Hu Jintao is planning to host a foreign leader at the adjacent Great Hall of the People.
For Mr. Kim, used to having complete control of the media in his country, the revelation that he had stayed in the lavish presidential suite of the Furuma Hotel while in Dalian might have been an uncomfortable one, especially given that the posted nightly rate for the suite is $2,300, or $500 more than the average North Korean's annual income. The 750-square-metre suite comes with a private dining room, Jacuzzi and private sauna, according to the hotel's website.
Yonhap, however, reported that it was Beijing, not Pyongyang, footing the $50,000-a-day total bill for Mr. Kim's trip.
News that their government was paying for Mr. Kim's five-star sleep quickly spread among some of China's 400 million Internet users. Those able to access Twitter, a site blocked by the Chinese government but accessible to the technologically savvy, expressed their outrage in a conversation with the identifier #kimgetout.
"Kim family dynasty, roll away," wrote Twitter user Wang Jinbo. "Why are we friends with hooligans?" asked another.
Seemingly concerned that its generous hosting of a widely reviled dictator would provoke just such a backlash, Beijing's propaganda department sent out a directive warning domestic media to keep a tight lid on the story. "Any reports or news items about Kim Jong-il's visit to China should use only centrally approved media reports and should turn off the comments section [if posted online]" it reads.
Like everything else about Mr. Kim's visit, the directive not to talk about the trip was leaked online.