China’s prime minister, Li Keqiang, is about to retire

At the opening of the annual session of China’s parliament on March 5th, the prime minister, Li Keqiang, will bow before nearly 3,000 delegates in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People, before turning to bow again in the direction of the country’s supreme leader, Xi Jinping. He will then deliver his final state-of-the-nation speech, laced with tributes to Mr Xi. A few days later, Mr Li will be replaced. It will mark the end of a striking era in Chinese politics, when two men with very different family backgrounds, different networks and, seemingly, different worldviews held the two top jobs. After Mr Li, only Mr Xi’s men will have the limelight.

It is highly unlikely that anyone in the hall will openly muse about how different the country might have been if, instead of Mr Xi sitting at the centre of the dais, it had been Mr Li. Early this century it looked possible that it might turn out that way, with Mr Li—not Mr Xi—becoming paramount leader. Another remarkable feature of the past decade has been that a politician once seen as a strong contender for that role ended up serving as number two in the Communist Party hierarchy, showing little sign of resistance to the ever greater power that Mr Xi proceeded to amass at the expense of his own. It was not long after Mr Li took over as prime minister in 2013 that observers began to wonder whether his formal ranking overstated his authority.