As China’s top leadership changes guard in the coming months, domestic and foreign financiers will have an eye in particular on one man, Zhou Xiaochuan, the governor of the People’s Bank of China.

Mr Zhou is no Alan Greenspan. Although he has a say in monetary policy, and an increasingly influential one in recent years, interest rate rises must be approved by the premier and other senior leaders. But despite the constraints of the political system, Mr Zhou has been an unusually activist and outspoken central bank governor.