The stupidity of Chinese leadership and Xi Jinping regime seems to know no bounds:

China’s ruling Communist Party has banned its 88 million members from playing golf, having sex outside of marriage and partaking in “extravagant eating and drinking,” according to the country’s state media.

Good grief . . . .

The whole China story is turning into a bad joke.

This latest development is particularly troubling, as the Chinese government appears to be singling out a respected business journalist for their joke of a stock market. Read about the forced confession here.

The game in China has always been rigged. It was easy to keep playing this rigged game as Chinese industry fueled massive growth, the much of the fruits of that labor has been wasted on unnecessary projects and plenty of graft and corruption.

Throw in a new leader obsessed with consolidating power and promoting Chinese pride and strength over addressing real economic issue, and now you have real problems. Xi Jinping may turn out to be a complete disaster for China.

President Xi Jinping’s wants to exert maximum control of Chinese culture as he tightens his grip on power and tries to leverage nationalist impulses in China. His latest national security law is another step in that process.

But in the long run he will weaken China, as this tightening of control makes the country less attractive to foreign investment. That may not matter much now, but in the future the bill on China’s many mistakes will come due, and this effort to control everything will likely backfire.

Strange things are happening in China as Xi tries to revive his vision of Chinese culture.

Chinese authorities are waging a war on American culture and the use of English. In April, China’s media regulators yanked the popular U.S. television shows The Big Bang Theory, NCIS, and The Good Wife from Chinese streaming websites Sohu (SOHU) and Youku (YOKU). The official party newspaper, People’s Daily, ran two editorials in April bemoaning the use of words borrowed from English when speaking Chinese. Then in mid-May came a flurry of reports in the state media confirming plans announced last fall to reduce the importance of English-language instruction and to expand courses on traditional culture in grade school and high school.

The implications will be interesting over time. China seems determined to loosen the US grip on world power and increase its own influence, but this may end up being counter-productive.

As the world becomes more open, it will become harder and harder for Chinese authorities to control what influences their people. I guess they think they shouldn’t be contributing to a trend they don’t like, but English is and will remain the international business language. Chinese is far too difficult as a language and it’s also inefficient. The rest of the world won’t bother learning it. If Chinese businessmen become less proficient in English, then they will just be less effective over time.

Chinese journalists are taking an understated approach to their calls for reform of China’s censorship laws.

As usual, the Chinese government is walking a tightrope here. They have huge problems on their hands with corruption and other problems, and a free press would force them to account for the problems. In the meantime, the press is growing more difficult to control, and you have social media as well adding more pressure. It will be fascinating to see how this progresses.