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But his power has limits 

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These are hard times for many local governments in China. Slowing economic growth and a teetering property market make it hard for them to service their massive debts. Some even struggle to pay public-sector workers. But instructions from Xi Jinping, the country’s leader, are hard to ignore. In Guangyuan, a city in the south-western province of Sichuan, officials met last month to study his edicts relating to lavatories. Eradicating noxious facilities and building hygienic ones is a goal that Mr Xi heartily champions. In 2015 he called for a “toilet revolution”. Political resolve helped China to create the world’s largest high-speed rail network in a matter of years. With sanitation, however, politics can get in the way.

A revolution is much needed. Toilets in China are often rudimentary, especially in the countryside where until recent years it was common to squat on concrete slabs over a pit, with the waste left to accumulate for use as fertiliser or even consumption by pigs. Long before Mr Xi began using the term, UN officials and global health experts had been calling for a toilet revolution in poor countries to curb the spread of parasites and diseases such as diarrhoea and malaria. China had been making progress. In 1993 fewer than 8% of China’s rural residents had access to toilets deemed sanitary by the government. By 2014 the proportion was about three-quarters. But the bar was low: even though septic tanks had become more common, few toilets were flush-types and many were still foul.

The effects of Mr Xi’s campaign can be seen in many places. At tourist sites and at transport hubs, flush toilets, sometimes in extravagantly designed buildings (see picture), are now commonly available. As is loo paper—though in some lavatories it is rationed by facial-recognition machines. In the countryside, particularly near big cities, public facilities have become much smarter, too. And in rural homes more than 50m toilets have been upgraded in the past five years with the help of government subsidies. By the end of this decade the goal is for all rural toilets to be linked to waste-sanitising systems.

Officials praise Mr Xi for this effort. They stress his personal involvement and how it shows his care for ordinary people’s welfare. State media suggest that the policy’s successes are evidence of China’s political strength. “Looking at human history, no country or political party has been able to mobilise an entire party and society in such a short period of time to carry out a nationwide top-down toilet revolution,” Guangming Daily, a national newspaper, quoted a Chinese scholar as saying. “This is a concentrated embodiment of the superiority of the socialist system.”

It might be thought that Mr Xi’s close association with the project would make officials especially keen to do the job well. Another of his campaigns is aimed at instilling the bureaucracy with kanqi yishi, or “conformity consciousness”. This is defined as “firmly and consciously maintaining a high degree of alignment” with the Communist Party leadership and “Comrade Xi Jinping at its core”. In other words, those who defy Mr Xi’s instructions, or drag their feet in following them, can expect trouble. But terrified officials do not necessarily make the most capable ones when it comes to sanitation work.

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Coming a crapper

In academic papers in China, and even in state media, reports abound of how the revolution has gone awry in some places. Richer parts of the country are performing well, but poorer areas far less so. At last month’s meeting in Guangyuan, officials were shown a report on the toilet problem that was aired by state television in June. “Why are toilets that have been improved lying idle?” were its opening words. After clips of interviews with grumbling residents of a village in Hunan province (and a defensive local official), the narrator intoned another question: “What have been the results of these showy achievements?” The farmers blamed the local government for shoddy installation, including the use of fragile plastic pipes, and for certifying the work as adequate even though it appeared that proper inspections had not been carried out.

It is often thus with top-down mandates—in their hurry to implement them, officials are wont to neglect the need for quality. In part this is a product of the way funding usually works for such schemes. The central government pays for part of the work, but leaves local governments to pick up the rest of the tab, often a much bigger share. Between 2015 and 2018, about 1bn yuan ($140m) was disbursed from the central coffers in Beijing for the purpose of toilet improvements. Funding from local governments and other sources was more than 20 times that amount, according to Chinese media. Corner-cutting is naturally more common in less-wealthy regions. The village in Hunan featured in the television report is in one of the province’s poorest counties. “In some places, due to financial issues, they have had to halt toilet-renovation projects,” said an article published in July in the Journal of Smart Agriculture, a Chinese publication.

It does not help that officials often take a cookie-cutter approach to such tasks, with little effort made to solicit the views of residents. Flush toilets are Mr Xi’s favourite type—state media say that during his inspection tours, he often asks rural residents whether they have them. But in their anxiety to please him, bureaucrats sometimes ignore climate and geography when foisting flush loos on villagers. Plumbing is prone to freeze during northern China’s harsh winters and water is often scarce in many parts of the country. In Shenyang, the capital of the north-eastern province of Liaoning, many new toilets built in the surrounding countryside between 2016 and 2019 became unusable because of the cold. In 2021 Xinhua, a news service run by the government, said that of 80,000 toilets upgraded in the Shenyang area in the previous five years, at a cost of 100m yuan, 50,000 had fallen into disuse because of design flaws, poor construction or inadequate maintenance. “A project to benefit the people has turned into one that breaks their hearts,” the report said of Shenyang’s experience.

Around the country, adult villagers are usually elderly, with younger people having migrated to cities to work. Officials spend little time teaching the old-timers how to use the new toilets, and why they are necessary. So some loos end up little-used as villagers revert to the familiar old-style squat types. “Most villagers have long-established toilet habits that are hard to change,” said an article in July in Rural Economy and Science-Technology, another Chinese journal. “Some villagers think that flush toilets entail additional expenses and consider investing in them a waste of money…Some even think it’s a purely cosmetic project…and have little interest in the ‘toilet revolution’.”

The party has clearly decided to give the media somewhat freer rein to report difficulties with the toilet campaign than it normally would with projects dear to Mr Xi’s heart. This may be calculated: exposing misconduct and slapdash implementation is not likely to affect his or the party’s image, only that of local leaders. In April the rural-affairs ministry announced that this year the toilet revolution would focus on “raising quality”. Inspectors would be sent to villages to look at how well toilets were working and being maintained (having spent money on building better loos, local governments often scrimp by not looking after them).

A number-two priority

In the province of Yunnan, officials pored over toilet-revolution accounts from the past few years and surveyed thousands of households. In July they announced their findings: nearly 330,000 households had not received the full amount they were owed as subsidies for building better toilets. More than 4.5m yuan had been falsely declared as having been used for toilet maintenance and management. Funds earmarked for the revolution had been diverted to other purposes. Official reports implied that financial stress was mainly to blame. Some of the money had been spent instead on education, health care and housing. One county had used it to repay government debt. In these straitened times, it is unlikely to be the only one. ■

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China.css-17w1oq6{margin:0.875rem 0;}.css-17w1oq6 .eikojtn0+*{margin-top:0.875rem;}.e14gikav1+.css-17w1oq6{margin-top:0;}.css-1i4m1tx{color:var(–ds-color-london-20);font-family:var(–ds-type-system-sans);font-size:var(–ds-type-scale–1);line-height:var(–ds-type-leading-lower);}.css-1i4m1tx s,.css-1i4m1tx del{-webkit-text-decoration:line-through;text-decoration:line-through;text-decoration-thickness:0.0625rem;}.css-1i4m1tx b{font-weight:600;}.css-1i4m1tx i{font-style:italic;}.css-1i4m1tx sup{font-feature-settings:’sups’ 1;}.css-1i4m1tx sub{font-feature-settings:’subs’ 1;}.css-1i4m1tx u{text-decoration-thickness:0.0625rem;}.css-1i4m1tx a{color:var(–ds-color-london-5);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-decoration-thickness:0.0625rem;}.css-1i4m1tx a:hover{color:var(–ds-color-chicago-30);-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}.css-1i4m1tx a:focus,.css-1i4m1tx a:active{background-color:var(–ds-color-chicago-95);color:var(–ds-color-london-5);}.css-1i4m1tx a:focus{outline:solid transparent;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;}.css-1i4m1tx a:active{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}

This article appeared in the China section of the print edition under the headline “Bogged down”

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China November 11th 2023

• Xi Jinping wants China to have better toilets
• The people of Hong Kong are growing more tolerant
• China wants women to stay home and bear children
• A Chinese dispute with the Philippines is a test of America

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From the November 11th 2023 edition

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Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents

Explore the edition.css-dv5w6c{margin-top:0.875rem;}.css-dv5w6c +.eq1asik0{margin-top:3rem;padding-bottom:0;}.e14gikav1+.css-dv5w6c{margin-top:0;}.css-19gx9y0{position:relative;border-bottom:0;border-top:0.0625rem solid var(–ds-color-london-85);color:var(–ds-color-london-35);}.css-19gx9y0 .ds-actioned-link{margin-right:0.625rem;}@media (min-width: 37.5rem){.css-19gx9y0 .ds-actioned-link{margin-left:0.625rem;margin-right:0;}}.css-19gx9y0 .ei4w8y0{margin-right:0.625rem;margin-top:0;}@media (min-width: 37.5rem){.css-19gx9y0 .ei4w8y0{margin-right:0;}}.css-19gx9y0 .ei4w8y0 .ds-actioned-link{margin-right:0;}.css-19gx9y0 >.eygoqsu0>*{padding:1rem 0;}.css-19gx9y0 >.eygoqsu0>*:nth-of-type(2){border-top:0.0625rem solid var(–ds-color-london-85);}@media (min-width: 37.5rem){.css-19gx9y0 >.eygoqsu0>*:nth-of-type(2){border-top:0;}}.css-15sn8g1{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;-webkit-align-items:stretch;-webkit-box-align:stretch;-ms-flex-align:stretch;align-items:stretch;-webkit-box-pack:start;-ms-flex-pack:start;-webkit-justify-content:flex-start;justify-content:flex-start;}@media (min-width: 37.5rem){.css-15sn8g1{-webkit-flex-direction:row;-ms-flex-direction:row;flex-direction:row;}}@media (min-width: 37.5rem){.css-15sn8g1{-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;}}@media (min-width: 37.5rem){.css-15sn8g1{-webkit-box-pack:end;-ms-flex-pack:end;-webkit-justify-content:flex-end;justify-content:flex-end;}}.css-9mn5vp{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-flex-wrap:wrap;-webkit-flex-wrap:wrap;-ms-flex-wrap:wrap;flex-wrap:wrap;row-gap:0.6rem;}ShareReuse this content.css-j50zk1{position:relative;display:none;}@media (min-width: 80rem){.css-j50zk1{grid-column-start:9;}}@media (min-width: 89rem){.css-j50zk1{grid-column-start:13;}}@media (min-width: 80rem){.css-j50zk1{grid-column-end:13;}}@media (min-width: 89rem){.css-j50zk1{grid-column-end:17;}}@media (min-width: 80rem){.css-j50zk1{grid-row-start:1;}}@media (min-width: 80rem){.css-j50zk1{grid-row-end:span 4;}}@media (min-width: 80rem){.css-j50zk1{display:block;}}.css-j50zk1:last-child::after{height:0;}.css-1y1zooy{display:inline;}.css-1y1zooy >*+*{margin-top:2rem;}.css-1y1zooy >*:only-child{margin-top:1.25rem;}.css-1y1zooy >*:last-child{position:-webkit-sticky;position:sticky;top:1.5rem;}.css-mqgbir{margin-top:6rem;}.css-mqgbir .ds-section-headline{margin-bottom:1rem;}

More from China

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Is China a climate saint or villain?

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It is supercharging the green transition—while burning mountains of coal

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Why China’s confidence crisis goes unfixed

In 2024, to acknowledge public gloom is to doubt Xi Jinping

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China’s satellites are improving rapidly. Its army will benefit

Watch out, American warships

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Источник: www.economist.com