Absolute power a double-edged sword

XI Jinping is China's most powerful leader since Deng Xiaoping. The centralisation of power that has occurred during Xi's still-relatively-recent ascendancy is remarkable. Not only is he the president and head of state, he is also general secretary of the pivotally-important Communist Party of China, not to mention chair of the Central Military Commission, which controls China's armed forces.

Barack Obama may routinely be dubbed "the most powerful man in the world", but he faces many more constraints on executive political power and a much more effective - if not very constructive - political opposition than does his counterpart in China. Indeed, Xi has eliminated some potential sources of resistance to his rule in his anti-corruption drive, which has famously begun to net "tigers" as well as "flies".

So powerful has he become, in fact, that his leadership bears comparison with the dynastic rule of pre-revolutionary China - with all the potential pitfalls that implies. Not only is China's leadership still imperious and autocratic, but the concentration of power in one person's hands means that Xi's personal qualities and abilities have potentially profound implications for the nation as a whole. The fate of China is once again vulnerable to the "bad emperor" syndrome.