list 3 of 4 It also brings life back to the villages it weaves through. irannews.ru/ - irannews.ru His Chongqing model, however, was arguably the prototype for what Xi would soon unleash on the whole of China. Yet in the words of the Ukrainian soldier Gadfly, "what choice do we have"? More recently, on October 5, the Saudi- and Russian-led OPEC+ cartel announced its plans to reduce oil production. Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil producer, maintains the decision was strictly about its financial and commercial interests, as well as market stability. Mark Francois says Rishi Sunak did not commit to spending 3% of GDP on defence when he met the group earlier. Behind the scripted scenes, China's Communist Party hosts a cut-throat world. Surrounded by loyalists and with no heir in sight, Xi is now indisputably in command of a much wealthier country, with a vastly more powerful military. And for the first time, the world is uncertain of what to expect from China. Xi has swept aside the old guard, both the critical and the cautious. But it's still a mistake to draw a straight line from Mao to Xi, Prof Karl argues, because it dismisses all that came in between - and the Chinese who dreamed or fought for a different country. "My first introduction to China was in the 1980s, when the debates about China's future were huge, significant, and consequential," Prof Karl says. "The party itself was involved in those debates. But 1989 shut that down."