CCP Officialdom Lost in Drunken Revelry: Party Officials Drinking Themselves to Death Becomes the Second-Largest Cause of Abnormal Deaths

[People News] How many officials can a small wine cup bring down? Sina once conducted a survey on causes of abnormal deaths among Party officials: suicide ranked first, drinking ranked second.

Political-Legal Affairs Secretary Organizes Group Drinking, Official Dies

Recently, a CCP anti-corruption documentary exposed details of a case in which Li Xianlin, former Standing Committee member of the Luoshan County Party Committee in Xinyang, Henan Province, and former Secretary of the Political and Legal Affairs Commission, organized a banquet for 10 officials. Five people drank four bottles of baijiu, and one person died after drinking. Li Xianlin has now been expelled from the Party and removed from public office (“double expulsion”). His suspected criminal offenses have been transferred to prosecutors for review and prosecution. Officials involved were dismissed, expelled, or demoted.

The documentary said the banquet organized by Li Xianlin was to entertain his superior—Ye Jinguang, then Executive Deputy Secretary of the Xinyang Municipal Political and Legal Affairs Commission. Li then invited three deputy secretaries of the Luoshan County Political and Legal Affairs Commission, leaders from the county procuratorate and public security bureau, as well as several cadres from the Xinyang Municipal Political and Legal Affairs Commission to eat, drink, and revel together. Three of those present were “top leaders” of their respective units.

The total cost of the banquet was 7,170 yuan, of which more than 4,000 yuan was spent on alcohol, charged to a vendor under the name of the unit. Less than three hours after the banquet ended, Xia Yu, a deputy secretary of the county Political and Legal Affairs Commission who attended the banquet, died after drinking.

After learning of the death, Li Xianlin attempted to raise money from those who attended the banquet to compensate Xia Yu’s family and quietly settle the matter. Sure enough, the next day, the county Political and Legal Affairs Commission submitted a written report to the county Party committee claiming only that Xia Yu had died of a sudden illness. Yu Guofang, then county Party secretary, knew the report was untrue but did not report the real situation to higher authorities. It was only later, when the Xinyang Municipal Commission for Discipline Inspection and Supervision received reports and investigated, that the officials involved were punished as described above.

Although the CCP repeatedly issues alcohol bans under Party discipline and internal regulations, Party officials still treat these rules as worthless scraps of paper. As a result, officials gathering to eat and drink—and dying because of it—happens again and again. Even more dramatic is that officials who create fatal drinking incidents off the stage often stand sternly on the conference stage demanding anti-corruption measures and alcohol bans.

Li Xianlin himself had attended so-called anti-corruption education and deployment meetings held successively by the Luoshan County Party Committee and the county Political and Legal Affairs Commission just one day before the banquet. At those meetings, as the “top leader,” he gave speeches making arrangements and demands, emphasizing that measures “must be implemented in earnest.” The very next day at noon, he personally created a deadly drinking-table incident.

Such two-faced “top leaders” who say one thing and do another are everywhere in CCP officialdom.

Party Officials’ Drunken Dissipation Is Learned Behavior

In December 2022, six department-level officials drank alcohol together during a “20th Party Congress” training session at the Qinghai Provincial Party School. The six drank seven bottles of baijiu in total, causing one death. Later, the Hunan Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection and Supervision also reported violations by 11 leading officials in Xiangxi Prefecture who ate and drank illegally during centralized training on “the spirit of the 20th Party Congress,” attending classes during the day and arranging drinking sessions at night. Many of these people were also “top leaders” and Party secretaries of their units.

Naturally, when those at the top drink, how can subordinates not drink? Some even drank themselves to death in impoverished rural households.

Yang Xiaohan, former director of the Political Consultative Conference Liaison Committee of Luyang Town, Zhongfang County, Huaihua City, illegally hosted a housewarming banquet. Six people—including Huang Gaosheng, a retired employee of the Zhongfang County Finance Bureau; Tang Yonghong, former director of the Huoshui Township PCC Liaison Committee; Zhang Zaiyin, a retired cadre of the former county family planning bureau; and Han Tongcai, Party branch secretary of Shuangshan Village—drank more than one kilogram of baijiu. That night, Huang Gaosheng showed signs of drunkenness, and at about 8 a.m. the next morning, he was found to have died abnormally in a hotel room.

Zhou Daxu, the first poverty-alleviation secretary dispatched by the Zhenba County CDC to Xinmiao Village, visited five key impoverished households in the village. Village group leader Li Mingliang accompanied him to eat and drink at one poor household’s home. After drinking a bottle of baijiu, the group leader rode his bike home and was tragically impaled through the chest by a sharp tree branch from a roadside firewood pile, dying on the spot.

In recent years, reports by mainland media of officials dying because of alcohol have been endless and nothing new. One journalist compiled 21 cases of officials who died abnormally after illegal drinking. Compared with those who embezzle hundreds of millions, these cases may seem minor—but like corrupt officials, “drinking officials” are caught more and more often.

Why can Party officials drink in such massive quantities? Drinking builds relationships, officials protect each other, officials collude with businesspeople—it makes things easier, promotions smoother, and money quicker. When superiors arrive, you must drink; when colleagues from brother units arrive, you must also drink. Those who come to handle matters—seeking approvals or stamps—require even more drinking. Meetings and promotions demand risking one’s life to drink in accompaniment. The drinking table contains vast power dynamics and countless relationships: drinking is a small matter, being excluded is a big one. Yet when officials drink, they spend public funds—taxpayers’ money. The meaning of drunkenness lies not in alcohol but in intoxication with power.

A Party Culture Steeped in Alcohol

“Reception liquor,” “investment-promotion liquor,” “‘blending’ liquor” … “Revolutionary small drinks get you drunk every day,” “crooked and staggering, cups dripping along the walls” …

There are subordinates flattering superiors with banquets, drunken ugliness on full display; some die on their first day in office after downing 11 consecutive “courtesy drinks”; some mix men and women at banquets, with women serving as “side dishes,” leading to drunken debauchery; others gamble while drinking, full of thug-like behavior, turning violent over利益. Some drink to collect intelligence for personnel maneuvering; others, for certain purposes, grip medicine bottles in one hand and liquor bottles in the other at the table, only to be drunk under and lose authority. Under the banner of “public duty,” officials rush from one drinking session to another with tireless enthusiasm, living in drunken dissipation.

Li Ning, former director of the Wuzhou Industrial Park State Taxation Bureau, invited cadres from his unit including Pan Guihe, as well as Jiang Jianlin, Party secretary and director of the Mengshan County State Taxation Bureau, to dine at a restaurant in Wuzhou. During the meal, participants used playing cards and finger-guessing games to gamble on drinking. Jiang Jianlin and Pan Guihe argued over wins and losses in the drinking game, leading to physical conflict. Pan Guihe and others later went to another restaurant. Jiang Jianlin learned of this, rushed over, and punched Pan Guihe, who collapsed immediately and later died at the hospital.

There are countless such cases.

Truth Comes Out After Drinking

“What’s being drunk is power and status, and a test of loyalty,” said Liu Yu, a secretary in a Party committee office. “How good does Moutai really taste? Honestly, I can’t taste anything special. So why drink it? Because it’s expensive. Whether Moutai is genuine or not doesn’t really matter—what matters is whether the ‘power and status’ behind the glass are genuine. Even if you know it’s fake liquor, you still have to drink it as if it’s real. When a leader tells you to drink, that’s trust—treating you as one of their own, valuing you. It’s also a test of loyalty, to see whether what the leader says counts. This applies not only at work but also at the drinking table, because to a large extent, the drinking table is the office desk.”

“Those who die from drinking are often the low-ranking officials who accompany and urge others to drink,” said another municipal Party secretary’s aide. “In a society where power consumes everything, everything in officialdom revolves around power. Those being toasted may drink little, while those offering toasts keep pouring alcohol into themselves until they pour away their own lives. Otherwise, if you don’t serve the leader well, your future won’t be easy either.”

For CCP officials to gain a foothold and rise in officialdom, they must pass the “alcohol test,” letting superiors see their frankness and ability to grasp leaders’ intentions through their “drinking character.” “No alcohol, no joy”—without drinking, nothing gets done. Drinking must be done properly, with sayings like “Are we close or not? Drink until your stomach bleeds.” Because the CCP’s cadre appointment system works top-down, the more muddled and obedient one is, the more likely leaders will favor them and the greater their prospects for promotion. Thus, officials drink at the risk of their lives. Some even regard the ability to drink as a badge of power, a form of flaunted extravagance and debauchery. In the clinking of glasses, we glimpse one corner of the CCP officialdom’s disorder, corruption, and drunken decadence.

(First published by People News)
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