China's Communist Party this week set out the thinking behind recent guidance on weddings and funerals for party members. The theme was frugality when the party's disciplinary watchdog issued a raft of tweaked guidelines for its 88 million members last October. Even though the wording was vague, Wednesday's statement on how these guidelines should be enforced remained well within the spirit of the party's ongoing austerity drive. It is all in the name of stamping out corruption, but the perceived intrusion into life's most significant rituals sparked a backlash online. Read more
