Over the weekend, the party released revised rules for selecting top officials. This is the second revision under Xi Jinping. A previous revision was released in 2014. When the newly-released rules are compared with the 2014 version, it reveals several trends. Among these are: Political loyalty is now most important in getting promoted; The Party is struggling to create clear criteria for assessment – the new criteria are vaguer than those in the 2014 version; The Party has backed off its prohibition against employing officials with spouses or children overseas; and Internal voting on promotions has been de-emphasized.

(Comment: The revisions suggest the present appointment protocol is probably not working well.)