Officials across China are avoiding dining out to “play safe”, as the country’s latest austerity drive spirals into an overbearing campaign of excessive control like many similar ones before it.
Several officials interviewed said that the lifestyle change, even if temporary, was largely prompted by the ever-shifting local austerity measures, which could be even more stringent than the regulations originating from the central state and party bodies.
An official in southwestern Sichuan province surnamed Luo said his department head had announced a dine-out ban in early May, saying “eating out during this period is not good for you”.
“It is the latest ramification of ceng ceng jia ma,” Luo said.
Ceng ceng jia ma in Mandarin translates as “adding extra layer upon layer of control”.
The phrase is well known among China’s officialdom – long used to such top-down escalation. It succinctly sums up how local authorities at all levels tend to take excessive steps on top of the central directives to demonstrate political loyalty and often end up going overboard. The tendency was most recently on display during the pandemic years, when local enforcement of Beijing’s zero-Covid approach was often criticised as excessive.
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