China's discipline agency targets holiday luxuries

BEIJING - The discipline watchdog of the Communist Party of China (CPC) on Friday pledged to continue curbing extravagance and luxuries during the upcoming New Year and Spring Festival holidays.

Discipline inspection agencies will work harder to stop officials from holding feasts and exchanging gifts during the upcoming holidays, said Xu Chuanzhi, a senior official with the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) in an interview with netizens on the agency's website.

The CCDI announced a ban last Friday against using public money to buy calendars, postcards and New Year cards.

Most of the cards and calendars are gifts to superiors and colleagues and a waste of public resources, Xu said when explaining why the agency imposed the ban.

"Although sending a New Year card with public money doesn't seem like a big deal, it is a symbol of formalism and harmful to the Party's discipline," he said.

The CCDI welcomes the public to report such wrongdoings through its tip-off hotline and its website, Xu said.

Before the Mid-Autumn Festival, a traditional holiday in September, and the seven-day National Day Holiday in early October, the CCDI also issued a circular urging officials to refrain from luxurious banquets and gift-giving.

According to Xu, the agency received 917 tips-offs about official decadence during the Mid-Autumn Festival and the National Day holidays and has been investigating them.

The campaign against extravagance started with an eight-point rule, introduced at a meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee at the end of last year with the aim of fighting bureaucracy and formalism and rejecting extravagance among Party members.