A recent chronicle of Deng Xiaoping's political life after 1975 discloses previously restricted information about scores of meetings of the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) top decision-making bodies, the Politburo and its Standing Committee. These data provide a more reliable baseline than has been previously available against which to assess the long-term evolution of the party Politburo in the post–Mao Zedong era and, together with continuing PRC media coverage of current sessions of the party Politburo, analyze its present-day procedures. This article complements and extends analysis, published in previous issues of the China Leadership Monitor, of Politburo operations since 2002 under the CCP's present top leader, General Secretary Hu Jintao.

overlay image