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.
it follows marxist principles and is building towards communism, which isn't overnight. It's currently in a socialist stage. Also, Xi is closer to the captain of a ship rather than an absolute monarch. He has a lot of power, yes, but that's because the party trusts him, not because he demands it
In the age of Mao, wasn't it closer to Marxism? There are more billionaires in China now, then there were back then. By that I mean, the wealth disparity in China is at an all-time high now, is it not? Xi removed the 2-term limit from his own position, and has been doing an excellent job at consolidating his power base, through all means necessary.
Disclaimer: I believe that pure "capitalism" and pure "communism" are marketing terms which both lead to authoritarianism, aka the "Horseshoe Theory of politics." To me, the natural end-state, if we survive the extremists is Social Democracy. However, it's boring and everyone appears to find the extremes far more exciting.