If economic growth was measured by the output of empty slogans, then China would surely be booming again. There will be “high-quality development” and “innovation vitality” to “comprehensibly deepen reform” and achieve “national rejuvenation on all fronts”, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) declared at the end of a key meeting last week aimed at rebooting the country’s ailing economy.

All this under the leadership of “supreme reformer” Xi Jinping, who was hailed as the heir to a modernising predecessor, Deng Xiaoping — even though his principal achievement since coming to power in 2013, 16 years after Deng’s death, has been to put “reform and opening” sharply into reverse.

That era of change is over and the economy is rudderless and beyond reform — and Xi