December 26 is the birthday of Mao Zedong, and 2013 was a particularly important celebration. This year marked the 120th anniversary of Mao’s birth. In celebration, Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang visited Mao’s mausoleum in Beijing and also attended a symposium on Mao at the Great Hall of the People. At the symposium, Xi promised to raise the banner of Mao Zedong Thought “forever.” However, Xi also cautioned that Mao, like other “revolutionary leaders” were “not gods, but human beings.”

China's leaders bowed three times before a statue of Mao Zedong on the 120th anniversary of his birth Thursday in carefully controlled celebrations that also sought to uphold the market-style reforms he would have opposed. The approach underscores the delicate balancing act the Communist Party leadership — installed last year — has to perform in managing perceptions of Mao's legacy.

This Saturday, Chinese President Xi Jinping will launch what is being billed as the most important conclave of Chinese leaders since 1978, the year that Deng Xiaoping transformed China from a dying Red giant into a market-driven dynamo. (“Seek truth from facts,” rather than communist ideology, he said.) The historic “Third Plenum” of Xi's term is meant to signal that he has consolidated power, decided on a direction for the country, and achieved consensus with the political class.

Though it has received comparatively little attention, one of the most profound geopolitical trends of the early 21st century is gathering steam: China’s pivot to Central Asia. As American military forces withdraw from Afghanistan and gaze toward the Asia-Pacific, and while Washington’s European allies put NATO’s eastward expansion on the back burner, Central Asia has become China’s domain of investment and influence.

When President Obama last traveled across Southeast Asia, in a trip two years ago designed to show his commitment to entrenching U.S. influence there, his administration's "pivot to Asia" was stymied almost immediately by events in the Middle East. The Arab Spring was setting the region aflame. Obama's goals of offsetting Chinese power, rallying rising East Asian economies under American stewardship and securing a role in this increasingly important corner of the world would all have to wait.

The U.S. government shutdown has claimed some more casualties. President Barack Obama’s visits to Malaysia and the Philippines next week will be called off because the logistics staff who precede the massive presidential entourage aren’t in place. Secretary of State John Kerry will go instead. That might not be a big deal if Xi Jinping, currently in Indonesia on his first Southeast Asian tour since taking office as China’s president in March, weren’t just about to visit Malaysia too.

President Obama’s trimming of stops on a trip to Asia this month has raised questions locally about the US government’s two-year-old rebalancing of resources to the region, a shift embraced by allies such as Japan and the Philippines as their common rival China looms larger. Following a partial shutdown of the federal government this week, the president put off visits with heads of state in Malaysia and the Philippines. He is still evaluating whether to attend economic events in two other Asian countries.

The flurry of speculation and polemic that has characterized U.S.-Chinese relations in the past decade or so reached a new intensity with the leadership turnover in China earlier this year. As Barack Obama started his second term in office and Xi Jinping assumed power in March, renewed debates emerged about the future of U.S.-Chinese relations, still perceived as the two greatest competitors for hegemonic status in international affairs. However, the reevaluation of this critical relationship has in fact known successive rounds.