Golf and gluttony are gone as China tightens rules against graft

China's ruling Communist Party has listed golf and gluttony as violations for the first time as it tightens its rules to prevent officials from engaging in corrupt practices, while also turning an even sterner eye on sexual impropriety.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has launched a sweeping crackdown on deep-rooted graft since taking over the party's leadership in late 2012 and the presidency in 2013. Dozens of senior officials have been investigated or jailed.

Tales of graft and officials' high living, including extravagant banquets, have prompted widespread public anger because bureaucrats are meant to live on modest sums and lead morally exemplary lives.

The new rules are an update of existing regulations and are designed to better codify exactly what constitutes a violation of discipline, the official Xinhua news agency reported late on Wednesday.

They are applicable to all 88 million party members for the first time and also include a new ethical code, Xinhua said.

"Party members must separate public and private interests, put the public's interest first, and work selflessly," the report said. Party members must also "champion simplicity and guard against extravagance".

"The new discipline regulation explicitly lists extravagant eating and drinking and playing golf as violations, which were not included previously," it said.

Golf is linked in the minds of many in China with providing an opportunity for officials to make shady deals and as an inappropriate activity for government employees who should be serving the people.

Party officials who play the game have already been targeted by Xi's crackdown. Last year, the government began enforcing a 2004 ban on building new golf courses more rigorously.

A vice mayor in a southeastern Chinese city was also sacked this month for belonging to a golf club and playing the game when he should have been working.

The new rules also talk about "improper sexual relations" with others, broadening the scope of proscriptions that had only referred to "keeping paramours and conducting adultery".

The charge of adultery is frequently leveled at high-ranking graft suspects as a way of showing they are morally degenerate and deserve punishment.

Forming "cliques" that seek to split the party is also banned under the new regulations, along with hiding personal issues that should be reported and abusing positions of power to seek gain for family members and staff.

While Xi has tried to improve the rule of law, the party has repeatedly refused to allow the establishment of an independent body to fight corruption. The party insists it can govern itself through its graft-busting Central Commission for Discipline Inspection.

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Communist Party, Xi Jinping, extravagance, China, adultery, Corruption

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