Who is Xi Jinping? Now seventy, he has served as general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) since 2012 and state president since 2013. He is the second most powerful – or the perhaps most powerful – person in the world. One of his edicts can affect a quarter of humanity and there is less comeback against him than against leaders of most other countries.

Born to privilege as the son of a senior CCP official, Xi’s life was turned upside down at the age of nine when his father, Xi Zhongxun, was purged. A few years later, the Cultural Revolution broke out and Xi was forced to move to the countryside, where he lived