It is an article of faith for many in the west that countries democratise as they get richer. China is proving a glaring exception. As the Communist Party of China wrapped up a quinquennial congress on Wednesday, the country looked more like a dictatorship than at any time in 40 years.

President Xi Jinping broke with decades of precedent by stacking the top leadership with staunch allies and acolytes, declining to elevate an obvious successor and enshrining his name in the Communist party constitution. Since the revolution in 1949, only Mao Zedong was able to achieve that honour while still in office. On the surface Mr Xi now looks like the most powerful Chinese leader since Mao’s death in 1976.

In one fell swoop he has demolished decades of painstaking efforts to legitimise party power and institutionalise a peaceful and orderly succession process. Of his three main titles — head of state, head of the military and head of the Communist party — only the state presidency, by far the least important of the three, comes with formal term limits.