Chinese premier Xi Jinping has been waging a personal battle against corruption, the lavish habits of the Communist Party leadership, luxury and waste for some time. The meshes of the maneuver are increasingly tightening around all the party members - small officials and senior managers - who do not align themselves with the president's directives: after the ban on attending private clubs it is now the turn of mahjong. A famous game of reasoning and strategy, mahjong - said to have been invented by Confucius himself - is very popular in China and has become a favorite pastime of public officials, for whom any moment is good to play a game and bet on it. above.
An article published in the "People's Daily", the official organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, calls for drastic measures against the worrying phenomenon of "officials who go on missions to rural areas and spend all their time in some tavern playing mahjong or poker”. The article in question is only the latest in a series of attacks carried out by the official Party organ against the extravagance of its officials. Moreover, Xi Jinping's campaign is a response to the growing popular discontent, which is increasingly targeting the endemic corruption, abuses and ostentations of party cadres.
The investigations did not spare even leading figures, such as Zhou Yongkang, nicknamed the "tsar", the all-powerful secretary of the Legislative Commission, who held the entire security apparatus in his hands. Apart from the case of Zhou and a few others, however, it is true that measures and punishments have hitherto hit above all the lowest levels of the party hierarchy. Upon hearing the news that the practice of mahjong could be banned for officials, social network users reacted with a mixture of approval and perplexity. “If mahjong is really banned,” writes a user from Chengdu, a city famous for its devotion to this ancient game, “how will our public officials survive?”.
