Council on Foreign Relations , "CFR Backgrounders: The Chinese Communist Party," August 27, 2015

The new makeup of the Standing Committee, whose numbers were reduced from nine to seven in 2012, was the most watched development at the eighteenth National Congress, in which China's next generation of leaders was chosen. Then vice president Xi Jinping took Hu's place, while Executive Vice Premier Li Keqiang replaced Wen Jiabao. Around 70 percent of the membership of the three most important leadership organs—the Standing Committee, State Council, and Central Military Commission—were replaced, making this leadership turnover the most significant in the past three decades.

Leadership succession is a fairly concentrated process, with positions decided by a very small number of top leaders through secretive negotiations. Some experts split the CCP's power structure into two distinct camps: the "princelings,"the children of high-level leaders, and the "tuanpai," those who, like Hu Jintao, come from humbler backgrounds and have risen to power through the Communist Youth League. Other experts see a much more complex power dynamic built from personal alliances and factional loyalties juggled among three groups: retired leaders (in particular Deng Xiaoping, who picked Hu Jintao), incumbents, and the incoming class, according to Minxin Pei, a China expert at Claremont McKenna College. CCP leaders "all have conflicting interests that sometimes overlap," says Pei. "The dynamics can be very fluid in this three-way negotiation process."

Such complex dynamics can be seen in the scandals that have rattled the transition process and Xi's anti-corruption campaign. The scope of Xi's campaign is unprecedented: since 2013, Xi's campaign has targeted a number of powerful political and military figures, including Hu's former aide, Ling Jihua, and his brothers; former Chongqing party chief Bo Xilai and his wife; Xu Caihou and Guo Boxiong former vice chairmen of China's top military body; and Zhou Yongkang, a retired Polibuto Standing Committee member and former chief of the law and politics commission of the CCP. 

Bo's expulsion from the party and subsequent trial highlighted party infighting and power struggles that plagued the party's transition. The targeting of elite political factions has  fueled concerns that political motivations are driving Xi's campaign. The campaign is "one part of a wider effort to destroy his enemies," writes Princeton University Professor Aaron Friedberg, but he adds that the trials are also an acknowledgement that high-level corruption can no longer be ignored.

Perhaps most pressing is the CCP's treatment of the massive income disparity that China's economic boom created; in mid-2012, the CCP announced a new income-distribution framework set for approval to redress the growing gap. The country's emergence as an economic superpower has heightened governance challenges as China's middle class expands. In particular, the "side effects of rapid economic growth, including the gap between rich and poor, rising prices, pollution, and the loss of traditional culture are major concerns, and there are also increasing worries about political corruption," according to the Pew Research Center.

China's recent economic growth, which has slowed since its breakneck, double-digit growth in the early 2000s, has also been a point of concern for policymakers, who have called for reforms to increase domestic consumption and curb reliance on exports for growth. An important Communist Party policy meeting in 2013, called the Third Plenum, called for a “decisive role” for markets in China’s economy while retaining a strong role for the state, however a number of analysts say that in practice, economic planning has been muddled. The Chinese stock market volatility in the summer of 2015 raised questions about the party’s ability to implement proper economic reforms. Despite government intervention, including stopping of stock sell-offs and devaluing its currency for the second time in a year, market turmoil persisted.

In 2014, the Chinese economy missed its 7.5 percent growth growth target by a tenth of a percent, marking its slowest pace in twenty-four years, in spite of a series of "mini-stimulus" measures implemented to prop up the economy. Beijing, facing waning growth, has vowed to meet its "new normal" target of 7 percent GDP growth in 2015.

Health care also has been a major initiative for the party as a vast aging population drives government efforts to broaden insurance coverage. Spending on health care will increase to $1 trillion annually by 2020, according to the consulting firm McKinsey & Company, from the $357 billion spent in 2011, and medical insurance now covers more than 90 percent of the population, although coverage is often limited.

The party has also moved on energy policy, releasing a white paper outlining China's initiatives for the next five years that includes developing clean energy to reduce its carbon footprint. Heavy smog in China prompted a series of reforms to improve air quality and energy use. The government announced in June 2013 reforms to restrict air pollution, including the country's first carbon market and an allocation of $275 billion over the next five years to improve air quality. It also eased prosecution of environmental crimes and increased local accountability for air quality problems. In September 2014, Beijing launched a resource tax on coal based on price rather than quantity, in an attempt to reduce carbon emissions and boost energy savings.

Meanwhile, China's burgeoning power on the global stage has sparked widespread perceptions of the country as an aggressive, expansionist power. Beijing has protested plans for U.S.-South Korean naval cooperation in the Yellow Sea and reacted vehemently to the U.S. sale of arms to Taiwan. It has staked unwavering claims on islands in the East and South China Seas—a move that pits the country against Japan and four other neighbors and has caused a diplomatic rift and stalemate in the immediate region. The bolstering of U.S. defense ties with Asia-Pacific partners—Japan, the Philippines, and Vietnam—has stoked China's maritime assertiveness. China declared an East China Sea Air Defense Identification Zone in November 2013, has conducted oil and gas exploration projects , and engaged in extensive land reclamation efforts on islands in contested waters But Beijing has also courted its neighbors: China proposed a "friendship treaty" and offered $20 billion in loans to Southeast Asian states at the 2014 ASEAN summit. And leaders from China and Japan held formal talks for the first time in two years on the sidelines of the 2014 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, indicating a possible thaw in Sino-Japanese relations.

Some experts contend that while China's relative power has grown significantly with its economic rise, its foreign policy aims remain defensive in nature: destabilizing influences from abroad, avoiding territorial losses, and sustaining economic growth. Unlike before, "China is now so deeply integrated into the world economic system that its internal and regional priorities have become part of a larger quest: to define a global role that serves Chinese interests but also wins acceptance from other powers," write Andrew J. Nathan and Andrew Scobell in Foreign Affairs.

By and large, the rational objective for the new leadership in China is to move away from an antagonistic relationship with the United States, experts say. But U.S.-China relations could continue to suffer until Beijing adjusts its foreign policy and political structure more radically, starting with the normalization of its regional relationships.

Still,"Washington should resist framing its relationship with China as a competition,” writes Economy in Foreign Affairs.  "Treating China as a competitor or foe merely feeds Xi’s anti-Western narrative, undermines those in China pushing for moderation, and does little to advance bilateral cooperation."