Funing County in China’s Yunnan Province recently issued new regulations on the conduct of weddings and funerals, and other invitations, in more detail than one might expect, providing a vivid example of the exquisite level of control the Chinese Communist Party has over Chinese citizens.
On May 3, the office of the Funing County Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) issued an official document entitled “Measures for the Administration of Wedding and Funeral Affairs in Funing County” (the “Measures”). There are 6 chapters and 13 articles, which clearly define what kind of parties can be held, what kind of parties cannot be held, and the details of various specific activities inside the parties.
Management measures said that the wedding and funeral celebrations should be simple, do not receive high bride price, do not use the luxury fleet, not to do things, not a big funeral, do not build a luxury tomb.
Wedding guests shall not exceed 20 tables, the cost of each table is controlled within 300 yuan, tobacco and alcohol expenditure does not exceed 30% of the expenditure per table, the standard of ordering meals (including alcohol) per capita shall not exceed 50 yuan; guests shall not exceed 200 people, the number of banquets is limited to one.
Provisions also clearly stipulate that it is strictly prohibited to organize “birthday banquet” (including birthday, birthday, full moon, anniversary, etc.), “promotion banquet”, “military banquet”, ” Qiaoxian banquet”, “promotion banquet” and other banquets; strictly prohibit the invitation of weeping teams, cultural teams, lion dance teams, etc.; the use of wedding cars shall not exceed 10, the gift shall not exceed 200 yuan RMB.
Regulations also require the organizer to the relevant agencies to report, explain the reason for the operation, time, location, scale, the scope of the banquet, the scope of people, ordering standards, and commitment to comply with the relevant standards. The declaration must also be publicized, so that the public can monitor the situation.
Provisions also set up assessment and rewards and punishments, the conduct of various parties into the “civilized village” “civilized town”, “civilized units” of the declaration and assessment content. If the violation, a deduction of 10 points, and ranking management according to the number of points. If you violate the rules ten times or more, you will not be allowed to participate in the selection of civilization units at the county level or above within three years.
This is not the first time the Communist Party has interfered forcefully with people’s private activity space in this way. Since Xi Jinping came to power in 2012, he has launched a nationwide ban on eating and drinking and on public officials joining golf clubs or private clubs. Last year, Xi asked people not to waste money at restaurants during a visit to the grassroots, followed by a “one person, one dish” campaign in Guangdong, Shanghai, Hubei and Tianjin to stop “waste on the tip of the tongue” in both institutional restaurants and ordinary restaurants.
Observers say that while the highest authorities in the Communist Party are asking party members and the public to save food from their mouths, the Communist Party is giving hundreds of billions of dollars to support developing countries in exchange for their political support for the Communist Party, and trillions of dollars to maintain social stability and build a surveillance system unprecedented in human history.
Commentators say Xi has revived the Mao-era reference in many of his internal speeches that the party leads everything in the party, government, military and people. He has established his control over the government and the military through anti-corruption, and has recently taken down China’s private sector tech giants Alibaba and Tencent one by one through anti-monopoly, placing them under direct CCP control. The current practice of local party committees controlling popular party activities is generally seen as a new initiative by local party committees to follow Xi Jinping’s lead and strengthen their control over the population. It is worth watching whether the initiative of the Party Committee in Kunming’s Funing County will be replicated nationwide.
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