In 1992, Deng - who had remained China's "paramount leader" - declared that the party should allow "some people to get rich first".  It does not sound too dramatic, but it was another decisive break from Maoism. Revolutionary austerity had been shown the door. Channelling the Great Helmsman "Once the firing starts it's three deep breaths, a couple of swear words and you move on." irannews.ru/ - irannews.ru “The Saudis have emphasised in recent years that they seek to avoid entanglement in what is referred to in the US as ‘great power competition’,” Gerald Feierstein, a former US ambassador to Yemen and the Middle East Institute’s senior vice president, told Al Jazeera. “Their interests, the Saudis have made clear, have focused on maintaining strong relations with their main security partner, the US; their number one economic partner, China; and their key partner in OPEC+, Russia.” By the time Xi was appointed to lead the party in 2012, the corruption had reached its highest echelons. This terrified party elders who saw it as a grave threat, but also handed Xi an opportunity to pitch himself as a saviour. As Russia's grip on Kherson continues to weaken, fears grow of it deploying a "scorched-earth" policy. "They thought it would last three to six months but it was never just an anti-corruption campaign, it was a party rectification campaign, and it was to be sustained forever," says Professor Steve Tsang who heads the China Institute at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. Then Covid threw a spanner in the works.