Xi Jinping’s ‘Improper Dining’ Campaign Hurts Economy

There is a famous Chinese expression that belongs to the Han family: “民以食为天”, or, “above all else, people want food.” But in China today, the dinner plate can carry a political danger. From the banquets linked to Moutai bottles to modest pasta stores near local party offices, where officials and a political minefield became.

As part of a comprehensive campaign on what the Communist Party leaders who consider inappropriate food – inappropriate, are inappropriate food, especially on the general dim – the servants throughout China are subject to modest gatherings. In some provinces, officials are warned of eating in groups greater than three.

As part of a comprehensive campaign on what the Communist Party leaders who consider inappropriate food – inappropriate, are inappropriate food, especially on the general dim – the servants throughout China are subject to modest gatherings. In some provinces, officials are warned of eating in groups greater than three.

Elsewhere, they face Creathalzer daily tests, or they are directed to go directly to the home after work, or are asked to study lists of 20 “dangerous” formations – such as meals with colleagues from other departments, dinner in high -end private clubs, or banquets hosted by companies or vaginal effects of the association. At Wuhan, a state -owned institution told employees that up to a low -cost meal in the workplace canteen with a colleague from another department.

This ridiculous level of control of President Xi Jinping’s long campaign is rooted to the “Self -Party” of the Communist Party. When Xi began his rule in 2012, he launched a comprehensive anti-corruption initiative targeting “tigers and flies” both-both of whom are elite officials and popular cadres. The government media has put this as “a revolution facing interior with the code that referred to itself.” Reform, in this vision, meant the cutting of the party’s body. Specifically, his organization of eight points, in the same year, presented the bureaucratic surplus directly, making the luxurious official banquets one of the first visible victims. These meals have always been essential for how to carry out business in Chinese bureaucracy: they served as ritual spaces for falsifying relationships, exchanging services and building unofficial networks of influence.

However, despite the overwhelming nature of reforms, and even more than a decade, it has been common in many places for local officials to raise the huge unpaid restaurant bills – covered with public or convincing funds as supposed entertainment expenses. In practice, banquets often worked as gates for deeper rotten practices, enhancing general perceptions of distinction, ambiguity, and impunity within power.

The latest repetition of this campaign, which was presented in May, is a clear intensification of the campaign. Among the most prominent changes was an official ban on alcohol in all official jobs – a step that immediately shook the markets. But the tightening of this policy did not happen in a vacuum. The momentum began to build after a high-level incident in March, when a cadre died after a banquet organized by local officials in Hanan Province-a held one day after the political education session. The assembly included 10 party and government officials who drank hard in a private restaurant; Four bottles from PigioNagnary alcohols of 35 and 60 percent of ABV, between five of the attendees.

One of the officials died in the afternoon of that afternoon, and other people tried to hide the role of alcohol in death and quietly compensated the family, including the associate funds of individuals under their competence. The incident has strengthened Beijing’s belief that the policy diplomacy culture is still dangerous – and provided a political license to pay more aggressive and clear enforcement.

But what started as a popular effort to eliminate elite corruption at the beginning of his rule has now become a wider and more economical. Technically, the challenge is a distinction between the political banquets politically from the healthy rhythm of daily consumption. But in practice, the result was confusion, excessive correction and unintended damage – especially for the fragile services sector in China already.

In one of the provinces, all the government’s canteens were closed, forcing the medical staff to the night shift to rely on the instant pasta; In another city, a comprehensive ban on all gatherings that include members of the party have been disrupted by local investment talks and commercial negotiations. The policy tool that aims to eradicate the illegal gain is at risk of becoming a sharp tool for governance from top to bottom that suffocates the growth of Beijing growth.

Even the party’s trumpets are pushing back. An article that was distributed widely from this daily transgression of people criticized this transgression, warning that the equality of all eating with the slaps of corruption from slow and “formal” governance – a preferred term from something and this means, in the communist partisan terminology, adhere to the form of regulations without understanding their soul.

People are gathering for a banquet to celebrate the founding of the People’s Republic of China in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on September 30, 2009. Feng Li/AFP via Getty Images

This moral rigor – or its apparent form – is scattered on an economic cost. On May 19, the day after the release of the new regulations, the main Baijiu shares decreased, as investors were afraid to restart the decline after 2012 caused by the original eight points. The Food and Beverage Sector in China Wide: In 2024, more than 775 billion dollars achieved more than 20 million people. Restaurants-especially the modest type and rotation in the streets-are one of the main engines of home order.

The problem is not only that officials eat less. Do not launch commercial banquets, reception and social meals, not only commercial relations, but also local economies. When low -level cadres stop eating abroad, chilling effects are real. It is not only related to their extended social networks – it also relates to the political signal sent to the business community. It seems that the combat of graft has become a heavy hammer, which flattens the demand to beyond its intended goal.

By late May, after a full alcohol embargo was launched in many experimental areas, restaurants that depend on official or commercial entertainment began to feel freezing. In Tingcheng County in Gansu and Menyuan in Qinghai, some high -end places have reported that their revenues decreased by up to 70 percent of that month. In first -class cities like Beijing, the atmosphere around the food was clearly cooled clearly, as some restaurants have reported sales of one store that decreased by almost 20 percent on an annual basis. The high -end brand in East China has also witnessed a decrease in total revenue by 60 to 70 percent between May and June.

In essence, a “dinner table dilemma” reveals a deeper structural contradiction within the political economy in China. Beijing wants a clean and disciplined bureaucracy – but also the vibrant consumption and the confident middle class. She wants cadres who obey requests, but also those who take care of business, cut the red tape, and pay local growth. These necessities are not only in stress – they often contradict each other.

The contradiction increases through the political logic of accreditation: the bureaucratic system in China is an excessive pyramid, with a limited space for local appreciation or institutional feeding rings. This trend intensified under the push for the most stringent discipline and central supervision. While the pre-XI era allowed more local flexibility-sometimes at the expense of empowering corruption-it has given officials a greater area to adapt politics to the facts on Earth. Today, when mysterious rules are paired with harsh enforcement, the rational response from local officials is increased; It is better to be safe from politically.

So, while Beijing seeks to stimulate consumption, you should deal with the fact that local bureaucrats incentives are often not aligned with itself. In this case, when the political cost of being corrupt excels on the economic cost of excessive implementation, local officials know exactly any way to choose.

This phenomenon is not new in China. During the yellow years, when the cities imposed severe locks even in the absence of clear central delegations. It appeared in tightening the property sector, suppressing education, and enforcing data security. In each case, the fear of political errors led to excessive and economically destructive responses. Where previous fools focused on speculative capital or private industry, this ascension affects the social rituals that link Chinese society. Again, the Chinese economy cannot escape the attractiveness of its political restrictions.

In an attempt to manage this tension, Party Media tried to draw a line between “Eating Inappropriate Eating” and “Eating Normal”. But the implementation gap is still wide. What is exactly considered “natural” in a system in which informal borders are defined not under the law, but by converting political winds?

The deepest issue is that the solution to this tension requires a basic re -preparation for how to delegate power and how accountability is applied. Unless local officials are granted a real field for the interpretation and implementation of politics in accordance with the discretionary authority – without fear of political revenge – the excessive correction cycle will continue.

Ironically, the epic of eating and drinking can be an opportunity. If implemented using Nuance, the repression may have pushed a real reform for the public sector – in implementing official hospitality into more organized transparent methods, while clarifying the business sector policies, which remain its appetite for investment in a state of forgetfulness. Instead, it has become another example of how the political system in China-the uninterrupted distress, the elaboration of risks, and the hardness of its economic aspirations.

Chinese President Xi Jinping drinks the wine after making elites during a banquet in Hong Kong on June 30, 2017. Dale de la Rey/AFP via Getty Images

Strong like XI, still faces an institutional challenge: how to build a system where local incentives are better compatible with Beijing – where policies are implemented with both discipline and appreciation, and where the private sector trusts that tomorrow’s rules will be the same today. Until then, empty restaurants will continue to symbolize something greater: the bureaucracy that has been caught between the necessity of spending and the matter to act; A private sector that strikes the fear of political repercussions; An unequal path for economic reform is suspended between the need for political lines and the urgency of the launch of economic vitality.

As long as Beijing remains besieged in this contradiction, even the most fragrant meal will revive the appetite for the real economic transformation.