It was in November 2012 that Xi Jinping stepped on to the stage for the first time as leader of China’s Communist party with the words “sorry to have kept you waiting”. Now, more than two years later, we are better placed to understand precisely what we were waiting for. Though Chinese policies remain opaque, the broad outline of Mr Xi’s presidency has come into focus. In three areas of domestic, foreign and economic policy we can now more easily grasp where China is heading.

Domestic policy is the easiest to analyse. Mr Xi has launched the most aggressive anti-corruption drive ever seen in Communist China. What started out as a seemingly routine assault on graft has become Mr Xi’s all-out war on “tigers and flies”. At the level of the flies, state apparatchiks now live in terror of a knock on the door. Lavish banquets have stopped, or else become ultra discreet . Gift-giving is less fulsome. Sales of expensive cognac and watches are down. So are Macau gaming revenues.

The tigers — or at least some of them — have been even more exposed. In December, after months of speculation, Zhou Yongkang, the former head of China’s fearsome state security services, became the most senior Communist party cadre ever to face formal corruption charges.