It may be no exaggeration to say that Xi Jinping is now the world’s most powerful leader. To be fair, there’s not an awful lot of competition. Barack Obama, the US president, has been humbled abroad in Syria and weakened at home by the embarrassing failure of his healthcare plan. Perhaps prematurely, he is already being cast as a lame duck. Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, may not see out her third term as head of what, by Chinese standards, is a medium-sized national enterprise. Shinzo Abe, Japan’s prime minister, is in charge of the world’s most impressive printing press, though hardly its most robust economy. By default, that leaves Mr Xi, who has nine years left at the helm of an economy that could be the world’s biggest by the time he leaves office in 2020.
或許可以豪不夸張地講，習(xí)近平如今是世界上最有權(quán)勢(shì)的領(lǐng)導(dǎo)人。平心而論，在這一點(diǎn)上能與他一爭(zhēng)高下者不多。敘利亞問(wèn)題讓美國(guó)總統(tǒng)巴拉克?奧巴馬(Barack Obama)在國(guó)際社會(huì)上灰頭土臉，醫(yī)改方案尷尬失敗，則削弱了他在國(guó)內(nèi)的地位。盡管現(xiàn)在下結(jié)論或許為時(shí)過(guò)早，但奧巴馬已開(kāi)始被形容為一只“陂腳鴨”。德國(guó)總理安格拉?默克爾(Angela Merkel)可能無(wú)法完成第三個(gè)總理任期——而按中國(guó)的標(biāo)準(zhǔn)來(lái)看，德國(guó)不過(guò)是一個(gè)中等規(guī)模的國(guó)家。日本首相安倍晉三(Shinzo Abe)正掌管著全球馬力最足的印鈔機(jī)，不過(guò)日本絕對(duì)稱不上全球增長(zhǎng)最強(qiáng)勁的經(jīng)濟(jì)體。因此，勝利者自然就是習(xí)近平了。他的任期還有9年，到2020年他卸任時(shí)，中國(guó)可能將成為全球第一大經(jīng)濟(jì)體。