This is the Guardian.

Today, Xi Jinping has unprecedented power.

What does his past tell us about what's in store for the future of China and the world?

This week saw the opening of the biggest event in China's political calendar.

The 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, a meeting held once every five years,

that sets the future direction of the country that will soon become the world's largest economy.

Emigraim Harrison, the Guardian's senior international affairs correspondent,

has been to past congresses and knows what she's saying this time.

This is a show. It's a Communist Party show. The party that runs the country,

is putting on a display for the country. The setting for this drama is the great hall of the people,

a vast, rather ugly kind of Soviet inspired building on Tiananmen Square,

which is used for all these pieces of political theatre.

And the start of this political show, the man at the centre of it,

is the party's paramount leader, Xi Jinping.

We have united and let the whole party, the whole army,

and the people of all nationalities to effectively cope with the severe and complex international situation.

Xi is on the brink of something unprecedented for decades,

expected to be anointed as China's president for a third term.

He'll be the most powerful Chinese leader since Chairman Mao.

The president Biden just declared that China is America's most consequential geopolitical challenge.

And one of the most powerful people in the world,

which makes it absolutely urgent to know, who is he, what's shaped him,

...