Plenary sessions of the Central Committee, the upper echelon of China’s ruling Communist Party, are major events on the country’s political calendar. This month’s edition, the fifth plenum, is attracting even more attention as the world’s second-largest economy takes on a more prominent role in global affairs. In the first part of this series, Frank Chen and Alice Li track the ways top-level policy decisions flow down to local officials – and the challenges those officials face in balancing a...