A March incident in the city of Xinyang in which five local Chinese Communist Party officials taking a lunch break from a seminar on how to cut back on spending at party functions then proceeded to plow through four bottles of baijiu, the country’s signature sorghum-based liquor which ranges from 35 to 60 percent ABV – sending one of the officials to cold storage and the rest of them into an ultimately unsuccessful coverup mode over his death – is now part of an updated version of the very guidance the stupid assholes were supposed to be implementing, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Exactly how the guy died is not clear, though it does not appear that his communist drinking party-mates were implicated in any act of violence during the blurry lunch on a day when they were supposed to be doing homework, that per the Journal, included “four anthologies of Xi’s remarks on discipline and over a dozen sets of party regulations and directives, including rules against convening official meetings at scenic tourist spots and using public funds to buy fireworks for the Lunar New Year,” lol. The four hungover survivors and other officials connected to the incident were definitely punished however, as at least a dozen were hit with censure, probation, demotion, removal from positions, or full expulsion. The buzzkill did not stop in Xinyang as it spurred a national crackdown on all officials, even the ones who can hold their liquor and not die at a party party.

“The party center has beaten drums and swung hammers, issued orders time and again [and yet some members still] turned a deaf ear and showed no fear or awe,” the ChiCom Central Commission for Discipline Inspection said in its symbolism-heavy disclosure on the party foul. “For such problems, we must insist on zero tolerance,” the report continued. Last month that insistence made it into an updated version of the CCP’s rules of “frugality,” now featuring explicit bans on serving alcohol, gourmet food, and cigarettes at official meals. Kim Jong Un probably laughed at that part.

Think tanker Neil Thomas, fellow on ChiCom governance at the Asia Society Policy Institute said it’s more of a political image thing than dictator Xi Jinping caring about whether any of them drink themselves to death on the public yuan. “Updating the frugality code will not solve Beijing’s fiscal challenges. But it reinforces Xi’s political control over the bureaucracy and burnishes his image as a leader who stands against corruption and excess, especially at a time when many ordinary Chinese are feeling economic pain.” Citing increased reports of party members being disciplined, other China expert, Georgia State Professor Andrew Wedeman thinks it’s all just performaive. “It is pretty clear that its decades-old anti-extravagance message is not getting through Cadres will continue to skirt around those new rules and find ways to continue to engage in ‘research’ – yanjiu,” which Wedeman says is a Chinese pun because a term for smoking and drinking sounds like “yanjiu” in Mandarin.

Xi’s Regime are also cracking down on expensive renovations of party offices, floral arrangements, using government vehicles for personal errands, and gambling on official trips abroad. They’re also putting one official through the wringer after his 17 year-old daughter posted a pic of herself wearing a pair of $320,000 earrings even though the guy was employed as a middle management civil servant from 2011 to 2017. The daughter herself was not even supposed to exist as she has an older sister and would’ve been born in 2008, seven years before the Chicoms lifted the 1979 “one-child policy” after realizing – possibly too late – it was slow-motion demographic suicide.