Xi Jinping is heading to the World Economic Forum in Davos. Perhaps his trip tells us only that the Chinese president has succumbed to the vanity that compels global elites to parade their wisdom over champagne and canapés in a small Swiss ski resort. And yet Mr Xi’s top billing at next month’s gathering also says something about the world. President-elect Donald Trump wants the US to shrug off its global responsibilities. China may grab the opening to move centre stage.

The populism that has unnerved the west during 2016 has scarcely been a match for the revolutionary tumult that gripped Europe in 1848. Though it ended in bitter disappointment for the revolutionaries, that year’s “spring of nations” struck at the foundations of the ancien regime. Today’s insurgents have grabbed power through the ballot box.

That said, a post-cold war generation lulled into believing that order and predictability are part of the state of nature has been badly shaken. Power is no longer where we thought it was. Even before the dust settles on the spreading populism that gave Mr Trump his victory and Britain, well, Brexit, we can see a different landscape taking shape.