The regime in Beijing will do what’s necessary to foster high-quality growth and common prosperity for China’s 1.4 billion (and falling) people. No questions asked. Literally on that latter bit. There will be no questions asked.

For the first time since… well, for the first time ever, for all intents and purposes, the Chinese premier won’t convene a press conference following the National People’s Congress. Lou Qinjian, a Party spokesperson, broke the news on Monday, a day before Li Qiang was set to regale a stone-faced legislature with the annual work report. On Tuesday, Li will almost surely say China intends to pursue 5% growth for the country’s hobbled economy this year, the same as last year’s target.

The decision to cancel the press conference marks an extraordinary break with 30 years of precedent. There are two main takeaways from the decision, each of which serves as confirmation of what the world already knew about Xi Jinping.

First, China isn’t under one-party rule anymore. China’s under one-man rule. It’s an out-and-out dictatorship. The premier role isn’t just hopelessly subservient to Xi, it’s functionally no more senior than any other role in the sense that everyone’s equal in being completely subordinate. The last Li (Li Keqiang) was popular both in China and in market and macro circles abroad. His exhortations for the Party to safeguard the economy during the pandemic went mostly unheeded amid Xi’s draconian virus dragnet, which this Li (Qiang) helped implement and execute in Shanghai. In canceling the NPC presser, Xi removed a platform whereby Li might’ve inadvertently endeared himself to the public, against the odds (he’s not especially endearing). To be sure: Li’s a staunch loyalist. But the colloquial setting lends itself to the establishment of a closer rapport between the premier and the public, something Xi apparently wants to limit. Li Keqiang, you’ll recall, died suddenly of a heart attack in October.

Second, Xi’s not interested in anybody’s opinion. On anything. He doesn’t want to hear it, and now he won’t. Your questions aren’t welcome, and now you can’t ask them. A spokeswoman for the foreign ministry tried to allay concerns on Monday. “Worries about non-openness are unnecessary,” she said. I don’t know if she took questions or not, but suffice to say nobody worried about a lack of transparency was swayed by a low-level bureaucrat’s curt contention that such concerns are meritless.

Somewhat alarmingly, the spokesperson who announced the cancelation of this year’s NPC press conference said that barring “special circumstances,” the premier won’t hold a presser “in the following years of this NPC.” So, no press conferences until at least 2028, apparently.

Lou, the NPC spokesman, suggested journalists will have ample opportunities to query government ministers and thousands of NPC delegates this year. To say that’s no substitute for the premier press conference would be a laughable understatement. Who wants to interview a random NPC delegate? What could you possibly glean from that? They’re just mannequins.

The bottom line on Monday is that Xi’s just sent another disconcertingly unequivocal signal about the Chinese government and his inclinations to rule unchallenged, unchecked and unquestioned. There’s no real power vested in China’s No. 2, none at all, and the Party intends to sever any and all direct communication lines with the government.

This is yet another example of Xi saying one thing (China will continue to “open up,” China’s not a black box, he’s not a dictator and so on) and doing something not just at odds with, but in fact diametrically opposed to, his own rhetoric.