This paper reports our initial findings on whether Mandarin Chinese has developed effective strategies to convey tonal information in whispered speech. We recorded phonated and whispered tones in monosyllabic words, and analyzed the acoustic properties of the tonal contrasts. We then generated amplitude-modulated noise based on both the phonated and whispered utterances and used them as stimuli in a tone perception experiment, together with the original phonated and whispered speech. Results showed that, once turned into amplitude-modulated noise, originally phonated and whispered speech had similar perceptual patterns, and that these patterns resembled those of whispered tones. The acoustic analysis showed that properties corresponding to tonal contrasts in whispered speech already existed in the phonated tones, and there was no evidence of enhancement of these properties in whispering. Overall, therefore, Mandarin may not have developed highly special strategies to enhance tonal contrast in whispered speech.