It may be no exaggeration to say that Xi Jinping is now the world’s most powerful leader. To be fair, there’s not an awful lot of competition. Barack Obama, the US president, has been humbled abroad in Syria and weakened at home by the embarrassing failure of his healthcare plan. Perhaps prematurely, he is already being cast as a lame duck. Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, may not see out her third term as head of what, by Chinese standards, is a medium-sized national enterprise. Shinzo Abe, Japan’s prime minister, is in charge of the world’s most impressive printing press, though hardly its most robust economy. By default, that leaves Mr Xi, who has nine years left at the helm of an economy that could be the world’s biggest by the time he leaves office in 2020.

More, Mr Xi has wasted no time in shoring up his power base domestically. In just 12 months he has become arguably China’s strongest leader since Deng Xiaoping. Evidence of that came last Friday with the release of the unpromisingly titled, but potentially vastly significant, “Decision on Major Issues Concerning Comprehensively Deepening Reforms”. The document – already being referred to in English simply as “the Decision”, as if it had been handed down from on high – details what looks like the most ambitious reform push since Zhu Rongji, the former premier, oversaw a radical overhaul of the state sector more than 10 years ago. A blueprint for the next decade, the Decision shows that Mr Xi’s team has got to intellectual grips with the severe problems facing China’s lopsided, investment-heavy economy and, more to the point, is not afraid to do something about it.

Mr Xi’s consolidation of power has been swift. Unlike Hu Jintao, his wallflower predecessor, he immediately took on all three of the country’s top positions, becoming, in order of importance, general secretary of the Communist party, chairman of the military commission and, oh, president of China. He quickly launched an anti-corruption drive that sent a shiver of fear down the spines of party hacks. He has also cracked down on internet dissent and brought foreign policy more directly under his control, the latter reflected in the formation of a National Security Council.