In the CCP's history, what repeats itself is not an ideological contest but the purge of individuals. People can be labeled and discarded, yet their policies often survive, reappearing under a different face.

Deng Xiaoping was once denounced by Mao Zedong as a "capitalist roader," paraded as a national enemy. After Mao's death, it was precisely Deng's cautious reforms that kept the regime alive. The path condemned as betrayal became the medicine of survival.

The turn toward the United States did not begin with Deng. In Mao's final years, he opened to Washington as a counterweight against the Soviet Union. Hua Guofeng carried this line briefly, but was soon swept aside. Ironically, Deng—who removed Hua—pushed the very same "leaning on America, relying on the West" strategy to its extreme. The man was discarded, the direction persisted.

Bo Xilai's fall seemed absolute. He was portrayed as a warning example. Yet the political techniques he had employed did not vanish. A few years later, Xi Jinping drew on the same "red campaigns" and mass-control methods, only dressed in new rhetoric. Bo lost the struggle, but his script was still performed.

The deeper absurdity is this: CCP struggles are never about who is right or wrong. Slogans, accusations, and denunciations are props on the stage. Right and wrong do not matter; what matters is who can destroy an opponent and secure power. A policy can be condemned as poison one day and revived as a cure the next. Logic is disposable, justification is noise.

In this system, the defeated are never entirely defeated. Their names and bodies are consumed, but their policies continue. Victory for the regime is often built on the legacy of those who lost.