The senior leadership of the Chinese Communist party recently concluded an important meeting pledging allegiance to the “rule of law” in the country. Now, “law” tends to be a bit of a malleable concept on the mainland, but there is certainly no shortage of rules. Indeed, Beijing seems to have celebrated its new commitment to lawfulness by issuing a plethora of edicts, each one more entertaining than the last.
One was particularly stimulating to the national satiric instincts: riders of the Beijing metro were banned from wearing Halloween costumes. Since that holiday is celebrated only sparsely in China anyway, and mostly by foreigners, banning pumpkin outfits and witch hats on public transport is hardly a Magna Carta kind of issue. But when the emperor issues risible rules, he should not be surprised if the serfs just laugh.
There are just so many of them: in honour of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit that is taking place in Beijing, the city has banned cultural practices such as burning the clothes of dead relatives (though funeral wreaths and elegiac couplets may be torched at certain hours); factories in many surrounding provinces were told to shut, cars were ordered off the roads, schools were closed and local government workers sent on a week-long holiday.