There’s a well-liked Chinese language idiom that goes again to the Han Dynasty: “民以食为天,” or, “At first else, the individuals need meals.” However in at present’s China, a dinner plate can carry political peril. From banquets laced with bottles of Moutai to humble noodle retailers close to native celebration places of work, the place and what officers eat has grow to be a political minefield.
As a part of a sweeping crackdown on what’s been deemed improper eating by Communist Get together leaders—lavish, inappropriate eating and ingesting, particularly on the general public dime—civil servants throughout China are beneath scrutiny for even modest gatherings. In some provinces, officers are warned to not dine in teams bigger than three.
There’s a well-liked Chinese language idiom that goes again to the Han Dynasty: “民以食为天,” or, “At first else, the individuals need meals.” However in at present’s China, a dinner plate can carry political peril. From banquets laced with bottles of Moutai to humble noodle retailers close to native celebration places of work, the place and what officers eat has grow to be a political minefield.
As a part of a sweeping crackdown on what’s been deemed improper eating by Communist Get together leaders—lavish, inappropriate eating and ingesting, particularly on the general public dime—civil servants throughout China are beneath scrutiny for even modest gatherings. In some provinces, officers are warned to not dine in teams bigger than three.
Elsewhere, they face day by day breathalyzer checks, are instructed to go straight dwelling after work, or are required to review lists of 20 “harmful” eating configurations—corresponding to meals with colleagues from different departments, dinners held at upscale personal golf equipment, banquets hosted by companies or subordinate businesses, and even reunions framed as classmate or hometown affiliation gatherings that carry the whiff of factional politics. In Wuhan, one state-owned enterprise reportedly advised staff that even a low-cost meal within the office canteen with a colleague from one other division is off-limits.
This seemingly absurd degree of management is rooted in President Xi Jinping’s long-running marketing campaign to “self-cleanse” the Communist Get together. As Xi started his rule in 2012, he launched a sweeping anti-corruption initiative concentrating on “tigers and flies” alike—each elite officers and grassroots cadres. State media framed this as “an inward-facing revolution with the blade pointed at oneself.” Reform, on this imaginative and prescient, meant slicing into the celebration’s personal flesh. Particularly, his eight-point regulation, launched that very same yr, immediately focused bureaucratic extra, making lavish official banquets one of many first seen casualties. These meals had lengthy been central to how enterprise was completed within the Chinese language forms: They served as ritualized areas for forging relationships, exchanging favors, and constructing casual networks of affect.
Chinese language males toast whereas ingesting baijiu at a dinner in Maotai, China, on Sept. 23, 2016.Kevin Frayer/Getty Pictures
But regardless of the sweeping nature of the reforms, and much more than a decade into their implementation, it remained widespread in lots of locations for native officers to rack up large unpaid restaurant payments—usually lined by public funds or disguised as supposed leisure bills. In apply, banquets ceaselessly functioned as gateways to deeper corrupt practices, reinforcing public perceptions of privilege, opacity, and impunity inside officialdom.
The newest iteration of those crackdowns, launched in Could, marked a transparent intensification of the marketing campaign. Among the many most notable adjustments was a formal ban on alcohol in any respect official capabilities—a transfer that instantly rattled markets. However this coverage tightening didn’t happen in a vacuum. Momentum started to construct after a high-profile incident in March, when a cadre died following a banquet organized by native officers in Henan province—an occasion held simply sooner or later after a political training session. The gathering concerned 10 celebration and authorities officers who drank closely at a personal restaurant; 4 bottles of baijiu, a colorless liquor that clocks in between 35 and 60 p.c ABV, have been consumed between 5 attendees.
One official died that afternoon, and different individuals current tried to hide the function of alcohol within the dying and quietly compensated the household, together with with cash borrowed from people beneath their jurisdiction. The incident bolstered Beijing’s perception that the tradition of banquet diplomacy stays dangerously entrenched—and supplied political license for a extra aggressive and extremely seen enforcement push.
However what started as a standard effort to remove elite corruption at the beginning of his rule is now metastasizing into one thing broader and extra economically consequential. Technically, the problem is to differentiate politically poisonous banquets from the wholesome rhythm of day by day consumption. However in apply, the end result has been confusion, overcorrection, and unintended hurt—particularly to China’s already fragile service sector.
In a single county, all government-affiliated canteens have been shut down, forcing night-shift medical employees to depend on immediate noodles; in one other metropolis, a blanket ban on all gatherings involving celebration members disrupted native funding talks and enterprise negotiations. A coverage device meant to root out graft is now prone to turning into a blunt instrument of top-down governance that chokes the very development Beijing is raring to revive.
Even celebration mouthpieces are pushing again. A broadly circulated article from Folks’s Every day On-line criticized this overreach, warning that equating all eating with corruption smacks of lazy governance and “formalism”—a favourite time period of Xi’s which means, in Communist Get together jargon, adhering to the type of rules with out understanding their spirit.
Folks collect for a banquet to rejoice the founding of the Folks’s Republic of China on the Nice Corridor of the Folks in Beijing on Sept. 30, 2009. Feng Li/AFP through Getty Pictures
This ethical rigor—or its ostensible kind—comes at an financial value. On Could 19, the day after the brand new rules have been launched, main baijiu shares fell, as buyers feared a replay of the post-2012 droop triggered by the unique eight-point regulation. China’s meals and beverage sector is huge: In 2024, it generated over $775 billion and employed greater than 20 million individuals. Eating places—particularly the common-or-garden, street-corner form—characterize one of many key engines of home demand.
The issue isn’t just that officers are consuming out much less. Enterprise banquets, receptions, and social meals lubricate not solely enterprise relations but in addition native economies. When low-level cadres cease eating out, the chilling results are actual. It’s not nearly their prolonged social networks—it’s additionally concerning the political sign despatched to the enterprise group. The anti-graft scalpel appears to have grow to be a sledgehammer, flattening demand far past its supposed goal.
By late Could, after the sweeping alcohol ban was rolled out in a number of pilot areas, eating places reliant on official or enterprise entertaining started to really feel the freeze. In Gansu’s Qingcheng County and Menyuan in Qinghai, some high-end venues reported income plunges by as a lot as 70 p.c that month. In first-tier cities like Beijing, the ambiance round large-scale eating has clearly cooled, with some eating places reporting single-store gross sales falling roughly 20 p.c year-over-year. A fine-dining model working in East China additionally noticed general revenues decline by 60 to 70 p.c between Could and June.
At its core, the “dinner desk dilemma” reveals a deeper structural contradiction inside China’s political financial system. Beijing desires a clear, disciplined forms—but in addition vibrant consumption and a assured center class. It desires cadres who obey orders, but in addition who nurture enterprise, minimize purple tape, and drive native development. These imperatives usually are not solely in pressure—they usually immediately contradict each other.
The contradiction is worsened by the political logic of overcompliance: China’s bureaucratic system is hyper-hierarchical, with restricted house for native discretion or institutional suggestions loops. This tendency has intensified beneath Xi’s push for stricter celebration self-discipline and centralized oversight. Whereas the pre-Xi period allowed extra localized flexibility—typically at the price of enabling corruption—it additionally gave officers extra room to adapt coverage to on-the-ground realities. In the present day, when obscure guidelines are paired with harsh enforcement, the rational response from native officers is overcorrection; higher to be protected than politically sorry.
So whereas Beijing seeks to stimulate consumption, it should cope with the truth that native bureaucrats’ incentives are ceaselessly misaligned with its personal. On this case, when the political value of being perceived as corrupt outweighs the financial value of over-enforcement, native officers know precisely which path to decide on.
This phenomenon just isn’t new in China. It emerged throughout the zero-COVID years, when cities imposed excessive lockdowns even within the absence of clear central mandates. It has surfaced in property sector tightening, training crackdowns, and knowledge safety enforcement. In every occasion, concern of political missteps led to extreme—and economically damaging—responses. The place earlier crackdowns targeted on speculative capital or personal trade, this one strikes on the social rituals that bind Chinese language society. As soon as once more, China’s financial system can not escape the gravitational pull of its political constraints.
In an effort to handle this pressure, celebration media has tried to draw a line between “improper eating” and “regular eating.” However the implementation hole stays huge. What precisely counts as “regular” in a system the place casual boundaries are outlined not by legislation, however by shifting political winds?
The deeper problem is that resolving this pressure requires a basic retooling of how authority is delegated and the way accountability is enforced. Until native officers are granted actual room to interpret and implement coverage with discretion—with out concern of political reprisal—the cycle of overcorrection will proceed.
Satirically, the eating-and-drinking saga may have been a chance. If carried out with nuance, the crackdown might need spurred real public sector reform—channeling official hospitality into extra clear, regulated avenues, whereas additionally clarifying insurance policies for the enterprise sector, whose urge for food for funding stays in limbo. As an alternative, it has grow to be yet one more instance of how China’s political nervous system—reflexively tight, risk-averse, and vertically inflexible—undermines its personal financial ambitions.
Chinese language President Xi Jinping drinks wine after making a toast throughout a banquet in Hong Kong on June 30, 2017. Dale de la Rey/AFP through Getty Pictures
Highly effective as Xi is, he nonetheless faces an institutional problem: Tips on how to construct a system the place native incentives are higher aligned with Beijing’s—the place insurance policies are carried out with each self-discipline and discretion, and the place the personal sector trusts that tomorrow’s guidelines would be the identical as at present’s. Till then, empty eating places will proceed to represent one thing bigger: a forms caught between the crucial to spend and the command to behave; a personal sector ossified by concern of political fallout; and an uneven path to financial reform, suspended between the necessity to toe political strains and the urgency of unleashing financial vitality.
So long as Beijing stays trapped on this contradiction, not even probably the most aromatic meal will revive the urge for food for actual financial transformation.
