Performers of Beijing opera and traditional Chinese lion dance have been caught in the dragnet of President Xi Jinping’s austerity campaign, with thousands of small troupes and their agents out of work as state corporations cut back on the finer things in life.
Dancers, crooners and actors join an illustrious list of casualties, which so far has largely comprised expensive drinks and edibles, from top-end cognacs and traditional baijius quaffed at government banquets to hairy crabs, as government officials struggle to demonstrate a new capacity for abstemiousness.
As many as 10,000 small performance troupes and their agents are struggling or even gone bankrupt because state-owned companies and branches of government have cut spending on banquets and other forms of entertainment in response to the crackdown, according to a media report on Monday.