Xi Tightens the Leash on Chinese Officials' Boozing, Lavish Living

Chinese leader revises austerity rules in bid to extend his authority and save money

- Chun Han Wong

Local officials gathered in China's central city of Xinyang in March for a seminar about regulations requiring them to be frugal. Over lunch, five officials consumed four bottles of baijiu, a fiery sorghum-based spirit, flouting the very rules they had studied. One of them died that afternoon, according to an official account, which didn't state the cause of death. The officials at the lunch tried to hide the illicit consumption of alcohol, the account said, by paying off the deceased official's family and omitting the drinking in their reports to superiors.

The Communist Party's top disciplinary agency highlighted the incident amid a new campaign to denounce extravagant and profligate conduct within the party's rank and file, underscoring Xi Jinping's struggle to rein in what he sees as widespread hedonism in China's bureaucracy.

"The party center has beaten drums and swung hammers, issued orders time and again," but some officials still "turned a deaf ear and showed no fear or awe," the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection said in its disclosure on the incident. "For such problems, we must insist on zero tolerance."

The CCDI said authorities have punished more than a dozen officials in relation to the Xinyang incident, with penalties including censure, probation, demotion, removal from positions and expulsion from the Communist Party.

Beijing reinforced its message with updates to its frugality rules for party and state workers, published in May, adding provisions that included an explicit ban against serving alcohol, gourmet dishes and cigarettes at official meals.

Other clauses prohibit floral displays and elaborate backdrops at work meetings, and the purchase of extravagant equipment for events. The new rules, added to a 2013 frugality code, are meant to promote the view that "thrift is glorious."