Who will name the new world order? The accepted view of a line that magically divides the “developed” from the “developing” worlds has always been illusory, a geopolitical sleight of hand. Now, in the case of China in particular and several other “emerging” economies in general, it has become so inaccurate as to be misleading.

Acceptance of China's growing weight in the world, evident in the way that Chinese leaders addressed US president Barack Obama as an equal during his visit to China this week, is gaining ground. Slowly, people are coming to the counter-intuitive realisation that a country with a per capita income of $3,200 (€2,100, ￡1,900) a year (slightly higher than that of Iraq) is assuming world leadership in industry after industry, market after market.

The list of fields in which China tops the world rankings or is leaping up the league of nations goes on and on. What is lagging behind are our powers of description. How do we encapsulate the concept of a developing country that is leading the developed world, a nation that has arrived and yet is set to carry on arriving? The search for a new definition derives from more than mere tidiness.