The Chinese Communist party confirmed Xi Jinping’s status as its most powerful ruler since Mao Zedong by formally writing his name into the party constitution.

At Tuesday’s close of a party congress in Beijing that formally marks the beginning of Mr Xi’s second five-year term as party general secretary, more than 2,300 delegates voted unanimously to include a reference to “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era” in the document. 

Mr Xi is only the second Chinese Communist ruler after Mao, the party’s revolutionary ruler, to secure an eponymous reference in the constitution while still in power, in a historic break with the “consensus” leadership model that characterised elite party politics for the past quarter-century.