Is This the End of Communist China’s ‘Integration’ into the World? What Happened to Peng Shuai?

The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) first historic resolution in 1945 cemented Mao Zedong as the Party’s undisputed leader; it followed a three-year, brutal campaign of purging his political adversaries. The CCP’s second historic resolution in 1981 came two years after the launch of China’s “economic reform and opening up,” under Deng Xiaoping. Unlike the previous resolutions, the third has no acknowledgment of past mistakes to be avoided in the future. This latest resolution is a celebration, above all else, of the “grand achievements” of Xi Jinping. China watchers say it is a political instrument for the purpose, in part, of cementing Xi’s position and deterring interference from the competing Jiang Zemin faction. The political-scandal allegation leveled by China’s international tennis star Peng Shuai at former Jiang Zemin-faction heavyweight Zhang Gaoli is said to be serving a similar purpose. What does the global trade status quo tell us about the real …