Xi Jinping is positioning himself as the most powerful Chinese leader since Deng Xiaoping Xi Jinping, the stockily-built, 60 –year-old leader of the last major nation on earth ruled by a Communist Party, has had a good, week. A major meeting of China’s leadership bolstered his authority one year after he took command of the rising superpower. Though his name is less familiar as those of his predecessors, Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping, he has stamped himself as the world leader who grew most in status and power during 2013. His readiness to adopt a degree of change was shown by the announcement on Friday that a key Party meeting had decided to loosen the one-child policy to let...
