BEIJING — President Xi Jinping came out of a Communist Party conclave significantly strengthened Thursday, when he was formally elevated to the status of “core’’ leader. The term suggests Xi has already joined the same revered league as Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping before a big shake-up in the party’s top ranks next year.

The meeting of the Central Committee, which consists of senior party members, also set in motion plans for a congress in the second half of next year, which is virtually certain to confirm Xi as national leader for five additional years and appoint a new cohort of officials under him. Naming Xi the party’s “core’’ leader did not have any immediately clear consequences, but it suggested that he has gained the upper hand before a potentially contentious year when he and his colleagues must decide China’s next leadership lineup.

Since Xi became general secretary of the party in 2012, the leadership “with Comrade Xi Jinping as its core has acted on its words, led by example, and staunchly promoted comprehensively and strictly managing the party,’’ said the official communiqué from the four-day meeting. It also demanded obedient unity under Xi.

“For a country and for a party, a leading core is vitally important,’’ said the document, issued by the official Xinhua news agency and solemnly read on Chinese state television.

“In thought, politics, and action, the entire party must conscientiously remain tightly in step with the party center,’’ it said, using the party’s name for the central leadership. It urged officials to “vigorously defend the authority of the party center.’’

In the past, the party has only deemed Mao, Deng, and the former president, Jiang Zemin, as “core’’ leaders. It is a kind of political halo that suggests the holder dominates his peers. The latest decision suggests that Xi has already won similar pre-eminence, even before he has finished his first term.

Christopher K. Johnson, an expert on Chinese politics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., said that the elevation was a “huge deal.’’

“The core designation puts him on a path toward granting him ideological arbiter status,’’ Johnson said by e-mail. That, he said, “could have big implications for appointments next fall,’’ when the congress is likely to meet and endorse a new leadership lineup.

At that congress, many leaders must retire, giving Xi room to reshape the party’s top tiers. Under the current informal retirement ceiling, five of the seven members of the Politburo Standing Committee, the party’s highest body, must step down, leaving only Xi and the prime minister, Li Keqiang.

In the past two leadership successions, a likely heir has emerged five or even 10 years before the incumbent’s retirement as party chief. But some political insiders and analysts have said that Xi may delay choosing a successor, so that he has more time and more choices.

Xi and his allies have been preparing for the title since the start of the year. At the time, dozens of provincial leaders lauded Xi as a “core’’ leader. Recently, some have revived the campaign of acclaim and also called for “absolute loyalty’’ to him and defended his “absolute authority’’ as party leader.

This week, People’s Forum, a party-run magazine, said that there were “high expectations for further defining General Secretary Xi Jinping’s core status.’’

But all that fell short of the official imprimatur given by the Central Committee, which brought together 348 officials for its latest meeting.

Xi also won endorsement for two new sets of rules — on party political life and supervision — that offer tools to cut off corruption, strengthen top-down control over officials, and extend the reach of the party.