I mean, that's the marketing material. Once Xi declared himself emperor for life, that marketing material fell apart a bit, didn't it?

How is modern China even close to theoretical "communism?" It's certainly not Marxist, right?

That's the biggest joke.

It's not. China has literally _thousands_ of years of bureaucratic institutional memory. And it just keeps perpetuating itself.

Before the 20-th century, the Chinese officials had to study the classic Chinese literature and pass exams based on that knowledge. These works were completely abstract and literally useless in day-to-day work. And you had to follow all the rituals to demonstrate your allegiance and being-in-the-group.

Now they just swapped the Classical Chinese works with Marxist writings. Nobody cares about their content, but you have to know them and you have to follow the rituals.