What Lurks Beneath the Surface at a Chinese Beach Resort

China's top officials have once again converged on Beidaihe, a beach resort east of Beijing known for hosting the annual summer retreat of the country's most important leaders. The summit has long been considered a critical gauge of the Chinese political scene, but over the past decade, growing institutionalization in the selection of senior Communist Party officials has seemed to foretell a decline in the conference's significance.

But this year's meeting, which began last week and could run for a week more, comes at an unusual time for China's leaders. Between President Xi Jinping's anti-corruption campaign, a plan to reorganize the influential Communist Youth League and preparations for the 19th Party Congress next October, politics in the Communist Party are undergoing considerable change. These shifts do not necessarily mean that the Beidaihe summit will regain the stature it had under Mao Zedong or Deng Xiaoping. But they will make this year's conference — and the rumors that emerge from it — worth paying attention to.