Although a communiqué issued Tuesday night at the close of the four-day party plenum hailed the "decisive" role played by markets, the financial markets didn't return the compliment.
During a briefing Tuesday on the plenum, a senior Communist Party academic told a mournful anecdote about his daughter's loneliness growing up as an only child in a Beijing apartment compound with few other children.
But as the party's elite gather in Beijing for the opening of their annual plenum on Friday, there is little suggestion that the climate for political change is anything but wintry.
On Tuesday, when the Third Plenum ended, China's leaders also promised that the free market would play a bigger role, and farmers would have greater property rights over their land.
The Knesset, Israel's parliament, recently broke for summer recess but is set to convene a special plenum discussion Wednesday to discuss the one-two punch of the fatal attack on the pride parade and the tragic results of an attack on a Palestinian family on Friday.
The growing rumble of opinions will have reached the ears of the country's Communist leaders, gathering Friday for the annual Central Committee plenum, heightening an already sensitive debate over political reform many believe is on the agenda.
On Saturday, China's leaders will hold their Third Plenum, where priorities for reform over the next decade will be discussed.
They waited two days for the opening of the plenum, but in vain.
At a meeting, or plenum, of the party's Central Committee that starts Saturday, Mr. Xi will enumerate his plans for an economic overhaul, and state-run news media has promoted the event as a turning point.
Thursday's celebration was timed to a 1978 political meeting, the Third Plenum, which anointed Deng as China's leader and introduced "reform and opening".
Chinese state media revealed the reforms on Friday night in a 22,000-word report detailing the results of the third plenum, a closed-door annual meeting of about 400 top party leaders, that has historically been used as a launching pad for substantial reforms.
