NEW DELHI—Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has intensified factional conflicts within the Chinese Communist Party as maneuvering for influence gathers pace ahead of an important Party meeting later this year, according to sinologists. Over the past days, the Chinese communist leadership gathered in Beijing for its annual “Two Sessions” meetings of the regime’s rubber-stamp legislature and top political advisory body. The meetings brought together more than 5,000 of the country’s political, business, and social elite, tasked to approve the Party’s policy priorities for the coming year, but the event was overshadowed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The annual meetings are also the last before the CCP convenes its twice-in-a-decade National Party Congress this fall, where Chinese leader Xi Jinping is expected to make an unprecedented bid for a third term in power. Srinkanth Kondapalli, a professor of Chinese studies in New Delhi’s Jawahar Lal Nehru University told The Epoch Times that …