MOST POWERFUL MAN ON EARTH
THE great dictator sits immobile as a Buddha while his minions glide around the stage. Watching Xi Jinping through binoculars in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, I marvel at his composure.
It’s 2014. Xi has recently assumed power as the leader of the world’s most populous nation and its second-largest economy. From time to time he turns a page as the speaker drones on.
Xi himself speaks only on grand occasions. He never touches the porcelain mug of tea before him (an iron bladder is one requirement for leadership in China). Not a glance, not a raised eyebrow betrays any feeling. His handclap at the close is brief. Enigmatic to the end, he rises and walks off stage with a rolling, satisfied gait.
Fast forward to today and this is the man who holds your fate in his hands.
At Xi’s command, killer satellites spin in the heavens, nuclear missiles crouch in their silos, a fleet of new warships prowls the oceans and the largest army on Earth drills for wars that will defy the imagination.
He threatens Taiwan, a democratic island claimed by China, risking a clash with the United States. His agents round up Muslims in China’s far west and jail dissenters in Hong Kong. His decisions shake stock markets, move currencies, make some nations wealthy and push others into debt. When you go to the shops, the price of everything you buy is influenced by him.
No man has held such globe-spanning power in his hands before. Xi, who rose almost without trace through the bureaucracy of the Communist Party of China, has emerged emperor-like on to the world stage, the most authoritarian Chinese leader
