China is ordering some of its civil servants to not dine out in groups of more than three in the wake of deaths associated with excessive alcohol consumption at banquets.
The move has been linked to Chinese president Xi Jinping’s push for boosting austerity among civil servants, interviews and social media posts show.
Released in May this year, the revised austerity regulations for Communist Party members and public sector employees now ban lavish banquets, “white elephant” infrastructure projects, luxurious car fittings, and ornamental plants in work meetings.
According to the new dining guidelines promoted by some localities, civil servant cadres have been asked to be wary of social gatherings, not treat bosses or underlings to meals and avoid “forming small cliques”, a social media post by a Communist Party body in Anhui province said.
“When dining with ordinary colleagues, groups of under three are usually fine,” the post titled “does it violate regulations to dine with colleagues after work” read.
"Avoid dining in high-end places, do not constantly meet the same people, do not take the opportunity to form 'small cliques',” it added.
The timing of these measures is not unusual as the notifications come after three cadre deaths in April this year, linked to excessive drinking at banquets in Hunan, Anhui and Henan provinces. The local administration has punished dozens of officials for attempting to conceal details of the banquets and privately compensating the families of the deceased cadre members.
The measures have also been confirmed by civil servants across Chinese provinces, confirming the push from Beijing to rein in its cadres on their socialising.
A civil servant in Sichuan province said her colleagues were ordered to always go straight home after work. Another cadre in Anhui province said her office recently started implementing daily breathalyser tests, while one in Shaanxi province said she was told to get rid of her office plants.
In Gansu province, a civil servant said she was asked to study a list of 20 types of dinner gatherings to avoid. A worker at a state-owned enterprise in Wuhan said she was ordered not to eat lunch with colleagues from other departments or bosses.
"Our leader stressed that even if I invite someone in our canteen, spend little and pay the bill, that's not allowed", she said, citing Party discipline.
The latest slew of measures has sparked a rare display of disapproval among the cadres, which is regarded as a tightly-controlled group in China, as many took to social media to complain that their personal lives are facing excessive and arbitrary restrictions.
"Eating alone is hedonism, eating in a pair is engaging in improper male-female relations, eating in a trio is forming small cliques," a user from Hunan province said on a social media platform, gathering more than 3,500 likes.
"Three of us colleagues went out for hotpot at lunch and each of us were punished with a warning," wrote a civil servant in Shandong province.
"This is overcorrection, the essence of the guidelines is not wasting public money on lavish banquets but at each level of bureaucracy it gets enforced more harshly," wrote another user in Guangxi region.
According to the experts, the move is a renewed push by the Chinese leader’s longstanding preoccupation principles on anti-corruption and setting Party discipline.
"The drinking culture among civil servants is indeed quite serious but they haven't found a good solution yet so can only implement a 'one size fits all' policy," said Alfred Wu, associate professor at the National University of Singapore.
"While Beijing wants to boost consumption, a clean government – which is Xi's fundamental priority - has a price."
