Chinese president Xi Jinping has pledged to reduce the role of central planning in the economy and usher in the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation”, but the unveiling this week of the country’s latest ‘rejuvenation index’ has been greeted with derision by many ordinary people and online commentators.

By the end of 2012, the Chinese nation was 65.3 per cent rejuvenated, according to the index published by the Social Development Research Centre of the National Development and Reform Commission, China’s powerful state planning agency.

That was an enormous improvement on the 46.4 per cent recorded in 2005 and steady progress from 2010’s 62.7 per cent level, according to Yang Yiyong, director of the research centre and the main author of the rejuvenation index.