By WASHINGTON POST

China’s rulers on Thursday offered a demonstration of the efficiency, ruthlessness and ultimate fragility of their regime. While the highest leaders secretively congregated in the seaside resort of Beidaihe, the wife of one of their closest colleagues was put on trial for murder in the provincial capital of Hefei. In a matter of hours, one loose end of a political crisis that began with the attempted defection of a police official to a U.S. consulate in February was tidily disposed of—or so the beachgoers hope.