Are we on the cusp of a remarkable power shift?

Sholto Byrnes asks whether China's president Xi Jinping is the most powerful man on Earth

Chinese president Xi Jinping has made huge advances in translating his country’s territorial claims into de facto possession, by turning reefs into islands that it occupies and builds on. Joseph Nair Show more

It’s hard not to think regularly about Xi Jinping, especially if you live in Asia. The shadow of the Chinese president, with that impenetrable, Delphic smile stitched on his face for every public occasion, looms large across the continent – larger even than that of the 1.4 billion strong country he leads.

For he wields and projects that power with a forcefulness greater than any of his predecessors, even Mao Zedong. Mao may have possessed military power, but his China was poor and weakened by his lunatic purges, whereas Mr Xi’s has, according to the IMF, overtaken the US as the world’s largest economy.

Mr Xi has been brought further to my attention by a correspondent from The People’s Daily, the Communist Party’s multimillion-selling newspaper, who has taken to emailing me of a morning. What do I think about Mr Xi’s historic meeting with President Ma Ying-jeou of Taiwan in Singapore? How about China’s initiatives in the South China Sea?

Given China’s often confusing signals and therefore unclear intentions, there is plenty to contemplate, and in Mr Xi’s behaviour, audacity to wonder at.

At home, he has sidelined his number two, Li Keqiang, setting up an economic committee and chairing another one that have taken effective control of what was traditionally the premier’s domain. His anti-corruption drive, thought to have gone dormant, has recently been revived, striking fear into the patronage networks of putative rivals and former leaders.

Hong Kong has been reminded that while its relationship with China may be that of “one country, two systems”, the mainland is not going to permit the former British colony to develop its own system in a manner that is not to the liking of Beijing.

Abroad, he has outmanoeuvred his opponents, or driven them to a stalemate in which he has the advantage, at every turn. The US tried to kill at birth the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, seen as a Chinese-led rival to the American-dominated World Bank and Asian Development Bank. The White House warned its allies not to join. They did any­way.

Once the UK took the lead, the pack broke, and countries from Europe and across Asia – even South Korea – happily signed up. Washington seethed, then tried to salvage a modicum of face in defeat by pretending they’d never been against their friends becoming part of the new institution (not that anyone was fooled).

In the South China Sea, Mr Xi has made huge advances in translating his country’s territorial claims into de facto possession, by turning reefs into islands that it occupies and builds on. The arguments over whether this gives China territorial waters and exclusive economic zones over huge stretches of the seas will continue, despite international law being clear that it does not.

The recent “sail-through” by the USS Lassen within 12 nautical miles of one of the disputed man-made islands may have been described as “provocative” by China’s top navy chief, but the fact remains that Mr Xi’s administration has incrementally made huge gains in the area; and no number of visits by American military vessels can alter the reality that China has a stronger grip on territory that Mr Xi said had belonged to his country “since ancient times”. Nor will the presence of these ships reverse the situation.

Most of the time, Mr Xi gets what he wants. And when he can’t – for now – he doesn’t give an inch.

It is hard not to judge that we are seeing an inexorable drift of power and influence away from the US and towards China. These circumstances also weaken the authority of the Oval Office. President Obama seems temperamentally reluctant to intervene abroad. In the light of recent American misadventures, that is mostly to his credit. But it also diminishes his sway internationally.

With the US presidential election being held next year, Mr Obama is, in any case, about to enter “lame duck” territory. Foreign governments know that anything he proposes now has a potentially very short shelf life. Moreover most of his possible successors – with the exception of Hillary Clinton – are neophytes in international affairs.

All of which leads me to conclude that we may be on the cusp of a remarkable shift. It has long been generally assumed that the US president is not just “the leader of the free world” but also the most powerful office-holder on the planet.

But at present, are we seeing the emergence of Xi Jinping (not necessarily the Chinese president per se – this is about the particular set of circumstances at the moment) as the most commanding and dominant leader in the world?

We know that he will be in office until 2022. His determination and will are self-evident. He is the paramount leader of a country that has risen to the greatest heights in its history, but which – with its keen sense of past glories and the more recent “century of humiliation” at the hands of colonial powers – feels entitled to far more, both in terms of territory and place in the global pecking order.

Is there anyone else who is more likely to have the most impact on the next decade? Not, for sure, a President Trump or Carson; nor, I think a President Clinton or Rubio. If the answer is “no”, then China may not be about to “rule the world”, as one bestseller on the country put it; but its leader may be coming as close as any individual can. We live in “interesting times” indeed.

Sholto Byrnes is a senior fellow at the Institute of Strategic and International Studies, Malaysia