Edward Gibbon, an 18th-century Englishman and the finest historian produced by Europe in modern times, noted of a 6th-century emperor that his huge accretion of titles did not quite accord with his somewhat underwhelming power. Gibbon called such titles "baubles", gathered to satisfy the monarch's vanity. He compared the approach of the first Roman imperial leader, the great Augustus, who five centuries before had done his best to avoid any specific titles or grand positions. Augustus's influence nonetheless extended far beyond his forty-four years as paramount leader, shaping the empire for centuries. Few people have had a larger, if largely invisible, impact on history. That, Gibbon declared, truly was power.
This contrast between two kinds of power – noisy but empty, or quiet but deep – is helpful when looking at Xi Jinping, who has now spent over three years at China's helm since his appointment in October 2012. It's useful to bear in mind that for leaders in the United States or Britain, the search for a new mandate would be underway by this time (and in Australia, with three years as the limit of a single term in office, it would have begun even earlier). Such leaders have to have achieved something in this period.
So far, Xi's time in post shows that China's Communist Party elders and other decision-makers have either consented to granting him a remarkable series of official positions, or been so sidelined and outmanoeuvred that not a squeak of significant opposition has appeared to prevent him acquiring these. The opacity of the Chinese elite political system makes it impossible to be certain about how they did it. But there is circumstantial evidence of a widespread belief amongst most of them that Xi had the qualities to manage what everyone knew would be a tough period of transition and change, and that in order to deliver he needed tools to put him in a position above his peers. So it was as much their consent as Xi's ambition that brought this situation about.
