Order to party bosses: no banquets, no drinking

Excessive eating and drinking at state expense: the Chinese party bosses were masters at this. Xi Jinping is trying to curb their excesses with strict measures. After all, in the current economic malaise, communist lazy people are very damaging to the image of the Party.

Empty restaurants

Luxury restaurants in China are seeing their turnover tumble, many even have to close their doors. The cause: an acute lack of eaters. This is often because their customers fail due to a lack of money. But many regulars have also dropped out. They were party and government officials, who ate their fill at the expense of the Party or the government or drank themselves to the leplazarus. If they cannot resist their nostalgia for this free excess, they risk a reprimand, a fine, dismissal or arrest. Because by high order, the campaign for austerity has been sharpened considerably.

Banquet with baijiu

In post-Maoist China, party bosses and senior officials liked to have their private expenses paid for by the Party or the state. And they were just as happy to invite businessmen – or other guests from whom they wanted something – for a meal that was to seal their friendship, at the expense of the taxpayer. The meal often took place in a separate room with a large round table. Function and rank determined the seating arrangement. Treat after delicacy was served by waiters who explained the beneficial effects of each dish. The gargantuan banquet was generously sprinkled with baijiu (‘white distilled’), China’s traditional spirits and the best-selling liqueur in the world. The best baijiu is from the very expensive brand Maotai (alcohol content at least 53 percent). Maotai was therefore extremely suitable as a bribe gift.

During the meal, the hosts stood up one after the other to raise a glass with everyone individually, of course in hierarchical order. A second round followed, sometimes even a third. Each time they said ganbei , the Chinese toast word that means ‘glass dry’. If you took that literally, it didn’t take long before the firewater did its job, after which the ideal time came for the Chinese host to do business with his intoxicated guests. Hosts did not like to be beaten in the pimping: there are known cases of party bosses who literally drank themselves to death in one day.

In baijiu bathing banquet

Ever since China came under Deng Xiaoping into the grip of the money economy, it was almost unthinkable to do business without a lavish banquet bathed in baijiu. This waste went hand in hand with ever-increasing corruption and an ever-increasing display of wealth. High-ranking people had at least one mistress. The nouveaux riches were not only party bosses and top soldiers, but also lesser gods and bobos in all kinds of areas, from education to the economy, from healthcare to sports. Whoever had even a little power and did not enrich him, had something to explain to his wife.

Xi’s fight against tigers and flies

Occasionally there were anti-corruption campaigns, but they were over after a few months, and then it was corruption as usual. Until Xi Jinping took office as party leader at the end of 2012. He immediately took up the fight against corruption. That war has become a forever war , in which both ‘tigers’ (high-ranking officials) and ‘flies’ (obscure apparatchiks) have been killed, as have wealthy CEOs and other businessmen. Their number is constantly growing. Last year there were more than a million. Recently, Xi said that corruption is still the Party’s biggest scourge and is even increasing. All the more reason to tirelessly continue the hunt for bribe recipients, extortionists and other money crooks.

Xi turns the tap off further

Why did Xi start this campaign at the time? Because the Party was in danger of going under because of its own corruption. Because Xi was politically shaped by the hardships he suffered as a teenager and young man in a poverty-stricken farming village during the Cultural Revolution. To make themselves popular, because the Chinese were fed up with the corruption of those who were placed above them. And to get rid of rivals, real or alleged, under the guise of fighting corruption, and thereby gather even more power themselves.

Xi linked it to a fight for austerity of the bureaucrats. It had to be over with their excesses, with the privileges they appropriated, with their extravagant banquets. As a result, the consumption of baijiu in party and government circles fell sharply. But the abuse was far from eradicated, and there was still a lot of slurping. Last year, the austerity rules were violated 225 thousand times. That is why a few months ago detailed orders came into force that prescribed what the hundred million party members must adhere to and especially what they are forbidden to do.

Official receptions are now alcohol-free. Exuberant banquets are out of the question, and in some cities it is no longer allowed to eat outside at all. Baijiu and cigarettes with the meal, which may consist of no more than three courses, are prohibited. Meeting rooms may no longer be decorated with flowers and chic background decors. Official cars may only be used for business trips. Departing guests may no longer be taken to the airport. Etcetera. Some officials don’t even dare to order coffee anymore. The measures are shrinking the waist size, but are tormenting restaurant owners and their suppliers.

Living on a shoestring

The tightening of the austerity campaign has a lot to do with the economic malaise that China is experiencing. Many Chinese are experiencing the consequences firsthand. The poor are getting poorer, the middle class of about 400 million people is eroding. Wages are going down, so is consumption. Unemployment is growing, especially among young people. Higher education discharges millions of people into the labour market every year, but labour is scarce there. Never before has the prospect of a job been so depressing. Young people who do find work often end up in a cutthroat competition of which only a few are the winners.

It is logical that more and more young people no longer want to participate in the rat race for work or promotion. They passively ‘lie down’ and only work when strictly necessary, they move to the countryside, they try to escape abroad. The Party abhors this sabotage of Xi’s “Chinese Dream” about the resurrection and grandeur of the Chinese nation. In order not to provoke the saboteurs and the common man even more, the Party forbids the display of unashamed luxury. That is why accounts of influencers who show their wealth are taken offline. And party people who can’t stop drinking are called to order.