CHINESE politicians often take obscure-seeming terms very seriously. Earlier this year officials floated the idea of anointing President Xi Jinping as the “core” of the Chinese Communist Party. Though the description has been applied to every paramount leader apart from Hu Jintao, Mr Xi’s immediate predecessor, it was controversial enough to be quietly dropped. But on October 27th, after a meeting of the party’s 350 or so highest officials, Mr Xi finally won the title.

A turgid communiqué summarising the outcome of the four-day conclave contained few other revelations. It repeated the familiar rhetoric of Mr Xi’s presidency, underlining the party’s commitment to fighting corruption and the need for party members to be more disciplined. It offered some platitudes: paying for promotion is forbidden and promotions should be awarded on the basis of good work, not “bargaining”; officials should follow the party’s rules; and—rather tough to enforce—“boasting should be banned” and flattery “weeded out”. It is hard to believe the party really intends that publicity about leaders be “based purely on facts”, as the document said it should be.

These instructions will have little impact. Indeed, by spelling out notions that should be self-evident, they risk making the leadership look ineffectual. They also serve as an eloquent reminder of how rotten much of the party has become.

That is a problem for Mr Xi. Though he has acquired huge power, he has struggled to exercise real control over officials in the provinces. He may be pleased now to be called the “core”—a term many had thought the party had decided no longer to apply to general secretaries because it risked undermining the leadership’s claim to be a “collective” one. But it will make little difference to his authority.

The closed-door meeting kicked off a year of political haggling ahead of a party congress which will mark the crucial mid-way point in Mr Xi’s leadership (assuming he decides to follow precedent and step down after a decade in power—some analysts wonder whether he will). After the congress, five of the current seven members of the Politburo Standing Committee are due to retire, along with a third of the Politburo’s other 18 members.

Mr Xi’s predecessors decided most of the Politburo’s current make-up. The question is how many of his own allies he will be able to install during the reshuffle. China’s next leader will probably be chosen from among this group. Expect next year’s gatherings of the party leadership to be more nail-biting than this one.