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Today’s short issue highlights only a few items as there is just not that much interesting news as we head into the Party Congress, which opens Wednesday at 9AM Beijing time. The first press conference was this morning and the spokesman confirmed that the Congress will end October 24, as expected. So we should know with certainty on October 25 the makeup of the new Central Committee, Politburo and Standing Committee.

The overwhelming propaganda aside, Xi and the Party really are heading into this Congress quite confident, and justifiably so…