BEIJING, China: Chinese civil servants are now facing stricter rules on dining together, with some local authorities limiting group meals to no more than three people.

The move comes after several officials died from excessive alcohol consumption at official banquets, sparking public concern and disciplinary action. These new restrictions are part of President Xi Jinping's ongoing austerity and anti-corruption campaign.

Revised regulations issued in May ban lavish banquets, wasteful infrastructure, luxury office items, and ornamental plants at work meetings. The changes apply to Communist Party members and public employees. Analysts see this as a renewed effort to enforce discipline within the Party, indicating that previous measures were insufficient.

"Drinking culture among officials remains a serious issue, and authorities have not yet found an effective solution, so they resort to sweeping restrictions," said Alfred Wu, a public policy expert at the National University of Singapore. "Clean governance, Xi's top priority, comes at the cost of personal freedoms."

The new push follows at least three recent deaths of Party officials linked to alcohol at banquets in Hunan, Anhui, and Henan provinces. Authorities punished several officials involved in attempting to hide the incidents or settle them privately with the families.

Local Party bodies have issued even stricter guidelines, urging officials to avoid treating bosses or subordinates to meals, limit gatherings to a few people, and not form private cliques. A Communist Party post in Anhui stated, "Dining with two colleagues is fine, but avoid upscale venues, repeated meetings with the same people, and forming ‘small cliques.'"

The guidance has triggered an unusual wave of frustration among civil servants on Chinese social media. "Eating alone is hedonism, eating in pairs is improper, eating in threes forms cliques," mocked a popular comment from Hunan. A civil servant in Shandong claimed they were formally warned after a simple lunch with two coworkers.

Reports have emerged of breathalyzer tests in offices, bans on dining with colleagues from other departments, mandatory review of dinner gathering rules, and even calls from discipline inspectors quizzing cadres on regulations. In Gansu, a worker said she was told to study 20 types of banned dinners; in Wuhan, inviting someone to the office canteen was ruled out as a violation.

Still, enforcement varies. Civil servants in Beijing, Chongqing, and rural Guangdong said rules were more relaxed in their offices. Some even supported the changes, saying they relieved them from peer pressure to drink with superiors.

These measures reinforce the "eight-point regulations" launched by Xi in 2012 to curb extravagance and corruption. The number of officials punished under these rules jumped from 9,292 in February to more than 16,500 in April.