Letter from Beijing

On March 22, a group of about 10 officials from the rural canton of Luoshan, located in central China, took their lunch break together amid a day devoted to the "in-depth study of the eight-point regulation." Under this rather uninviting seminar title, local leaders were once again required to review an edict from the central authority dating back to December 2012, just weeks after Xi Jinping became head of the Chinese Communist Party.

This piece of legislation, which marked the start of a strict austerity campaign within the single-party system under Xi, emphasized the importance of "staying close to the masses." It called for giving up unnecessary meetings and lavish meals, avoiding traffic blockades for official motorcades and no longer rolling out welcome banners or massive floral arrangements for routine inspection visits.

Since rising to the top, Xi has never tired of repeating that formalism, hedonism and corruption are threats to the system's survival. The strict regime imposed by the central government on the lower echelons of bureaucracy in Beijing's attempt to reassert control is summed up by the phrase "four dishes and one soup." Chinese officials are therefore expected to toe the line; this was the very set of rules reviewed by the Luoshan leadership at the start of that seminar day.

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