HONG KONG -- As Chinese Communist Party's 16th Party Congress convened on Nov. 8, the delegates stood for two minutes of silence in memory of past leaders. Along with Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai, one of the names read out was that of Liu Shaoqi. It was a pointed reminder of CCP tumult and strife in past struggles for power.

The growing rivalry between Chairman Mao and President Liu in the early 1960s was one of the tensions spurring Mao to launch the ruinous Cultural Revolution during which an imprisoned and neglected Liu died a miserable death.

Mao then succumbed to the sycophancy of Lin Biao and made him his successor, only to fall out with Lin, suspecting him of usurping his leadership role. To this day, we do not know for sure whether Lin died in a Mongolian plane crash or in an ambush within Zhongnanhai, the Chinese leadership compound.