I'm trying to picture the consequences of a collective leadership including Zhou Enlai, Liu Shaoqi, Peng Dehuai and Deng Xiaoping in power from after 1956.
I can say more about what do *not* expect to see rather than what their affirmative program would be.
I do *not* expect to see the following OTL developments in this ATL:
1) A Taiwan Straits crisis involving deliberately ratcheted up tensions and bombardment of Quemoy and Matsu
2) Chinese Communist Party condemnation of Soviet "de-Stalinization" or Chinese Communist polemics supporting Albania as a protest against Soviet rapprochement with Yugoslavia.
3) Chinese Communist Party criticism of Soviet Communist ideological "revisionism" in general
4) The domestic "Great Leap Forward" Program
5) Abrupt Soviet withdrawal of technicians from China in 1960
6) A Chinese attack on India in 1962. [There is a chance that China may be backed into attacking encroaching Indian forces entering the Aksai Chin as part of Nehru's forward policy" in the 1962-1964 timeframe, but a wider war extending to northeast India is unlikely.]
7) A Chinese attack on the Soviet border in 1969.
Some knock-on consequences of omitting these OTL events are that Quemoy and Matsu do not become a cause of US nuclear alerts, nor are they mentioned in the 1960 Presidential debates. Others are that there is no Sino-Soviet split and the Chinese remain the beneficiary of Soviet technical assistance for longer. Some of this assistance will even pertain to nuclear power, if not nuclear weapons themselves. Perhaps 1965 would be a good time to wind down most aid as that's when the US wound down economic aid to Taiwan and China will be a bit more industrial than OTL by 1965 if the GLF has been avoided.
China is not distinguishing itself as the more aggressive of the two communist powers on the global stage. This lack of competition or one-upmanship may leave Khrushchev more confident in his "peaceful coexistence" policies and this may forestall the Cuban missile crisis or Berlin crises (though I don't see how the GDR goes on without putting up a wall, and this does not prevent the U2 incident from torpedoing the summit of 1960).
Domestic politics in the US, the strength of the China Lobby and memories of the Korean War will likely preclude US recognition of the PRC during the years 1956 through 1964 and will prevent any high-level leadership summits, despite the post-Mao leadership's probable reduced stridency and approach of "hiding and biding" on the global stage. However, that reduced stridency and lack of the Quemoy and Matsu shelling irritant could lead to a reduction in US restrictions on journalist and educator travel to the PRC (like the steps the US took in 1969-70) before 1964. Perhaps French recognition of the PRC might come sooner than OTL, and western grain sales may become available in emergencies.
Thoughts-?