The Chinese Communist Party’s Third Plenum was largely about continuity, endorsing China’s current policy thrust rather than marking a decisive shift.

By accurately navigating global currents, stakeholders can consider both the expectations set before the plenum and the realities that follow, providing clearer insight into China’s strategic direction and its global implications.

In the so-called Third Plenum to be held on July 15-18, China’s senior leadership will have an opportunity to establish the broad outlines of a policy framework that could reshape the country’s course for the next several years. Don’t count on it. There is good reason to think that China watchers in the West have unrealistic expectations of what is to come.

When it comes to economic reform, China’s leaders no longer believe that time is on their side. With a new sense of urgency, President Xi Jinping and his inner circle are attempting one of the most ambitious economic and social-policy reform plans in history.

The Third Plenum of the Eighteenth Party’s Congress reflects recent efforts by the Chinese government to reform its military sector. By examining the historical challenges in reforming China’s military, Shen Dingli highlights the importance of forging a civil-military partnership that entails the upgrading of Chinese leadership institution and tapping the resources of each other.

With the commanding in power of China’s new leadership in the March, China has unfolded its ambitious new diplomacy with amity, accommodation and principle, writes Shen Dingli.

China was hardly lacking in policy pronouncements in the final months of 2013. But, seen in their entirety, the risk of incoherence has become evident, writes Stephen Roach.

You may have missed the funeral, but China’s new leadership has quietly buried the admonition of former leader Deng Xiaoping that as China rises in wealth and power it should maintain a low profile (known as taoguang yanghui), writes Douglas Paal.

At the recent Third Plenum of the Chinese Communist Party's Central Committee, China's leaders produced a 60-point "resolution" covering six areas. But a shopping list of reform objectives – many of which were not as bold or novel as promised – is inadequate to address the deep contradictions undermining China’s development.

Before China’s leadership transition earlier this year, experts said that the Chinese Communist Party was intent on preventing a larger-than-life personality from assuming power. However, a year has passed, the new-style leadership, a form of managed charisma, seems collectively designed to serve national needs, writes William H. Overholt.