Time to come good on the promises

Consulting | Giles Chance

Since Chinese president Xi Jinping took office in March last year, he has stamped his personality and authority on Chinese politics in a way that many thought had died out with Deng Xiaoping. The main reason why people inside and outside China have started to look to Xi as a leader is because he has demonstrated the two vital characteristics of leadership: identifying the destination and showing the way to reach it.

The third plenum in November, which the president dominated, pointed the way to China's destination: a society based on fairness and the rule of law and an economy of high efficiency and productivity, based on an increase in the share of economic output generated by the non-State-owned sector.