How does Xi Jinping think? China’s leader since late 2012 is one of the most important but least accessible people in the world. He does not give interviews. His lieutenants do not leak to reporters. His associates do not write tell-all memoirs. The Chinese Communist Party is a secretive organisation that dominates the country’s information ecosystem by censoring speech and crushing dissent. We therefore know precious little about how decisions get made in Beijing.

Pundits abhor a vacuum and fill this void with what a journalist once described to me as ‘fan fiction’ about Chinese politics. Rumours about military coups, thinly sourced reports on factional strife, and bold claims of an imminent Taiwan invasion are staples of the genre. China watchers can disagree on basic, critical questions regarding Xi’s thinking: How long will he rule? Does he care about economic growth? Would domestic weakness make foreign aggression more or less likely?