SMALLER IS BETTER: A waiter presents a half-portion dish side-by-side with its full-sized counterpart at a restaurant in Jinan, east China's Shandong Province. Chinese food is served to be shared, so small portions are traditionally less common (XU SUHUI)

"All these methods have proved effective and can be promoted," Minister of Commerce Chen Deming said at a national meeting on January 28. The meeting focused on measures to eliminate food waste.

Liu Qinglong, a professor at the School of Public Policy and Management of Beijing-based Tsinghua University, was happy to see the change in attitude toward food wastage, but he said that he's waiting to see how things pan out over the long term. He expressed concern that the new move might be short-lived and would fade away in the face of traditional cultural pressures.

"Ostentation and preserving face have been part of Chinese culture for thousands of years," Liu said, adding that people don't like to be seen taking food home from restaurants for fear that neighbors and friends may think them stingy. He suggested that the government should introduce a media and social supervision mechanism to combat these perceptions.

Yuan Longping, a renowned agricultural scientist, has even called for criminalization of negligently squandering food.

"China has a large population and little arable land, and we scientists have worked so hard to improve rice harvests. But after production increased, people wasted it," Yuan said in an interview with CCTV.

Official figures show that China's grain output in 2012 rose 3.2 percent to 589.57 million tons. However, import figures tell a story of a strained domestic grain supply facing an increasing population and expanding cities.

According to official statistics released in January, China's grain imports hit a record high in 2012 of 72.3 million tons, which means that China's self-sufficiency rate on grain has plunged below 90 percent, a warning sign that the nation may have a food security issue.

The Chinese Government sets a 95-percent bottom line on its grain self-sufficiency rate, according to an earlier white paper on food security.

Chen Daifu, a deputy at the National People's Congress (NPC), China's top legislature, told Xinhua that he and other lawmakers proposed a law to curb and prevent food waste, as well as punish those responsible for wasting food.

A government campaign

The "clean plates" campaign is also part of a drive by Chinese leaders to fight extravagance and advocate thrift. Last December, the Political Bureau of the ruling Communist Party of China's (CPC) Central Committee released eight provisions requiring officials to improve their work habits and refrain from excessive spending, especially spending on luxury banquets.

Many provinces have followed suit, launching their own, more-detailed versions. Central China's Henan Province has ordered that business meals for officials should feature no more than four dishes, and alcohol is prohibited. Southwest China's Guizhou Province has set a time limit of 45 minutes on meals paid from the public purse.

Also in last December, the Central Military Commission said that military banquets would be banned, as would alcohol at receptions.

On January 22, Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee, once again called on all Party organs and members to maintain a frugal lifestyle and resolutely oppose all kinds of extravagance, including luxury banquets.

The traditional idea of frugality should be promoted among the entire Party, Xi said, adding that all government organs, institutions, state-owned enterprises and non-profit organizations as well as officials at various levels should work toward putting an end to extravagance.

As far as Xu is concerned, the transformation from a non-government campaign to one with government support highlights the need to curb wasteful habits. "The fight against food wasted by officials is a fight against corruption," Xu said.

The latest example of the government's efforts came on February 5, when the head of a state-owned enterprise was suspended from his post for attending a luxury banquet after one of the diners wrote about the event online. CPC discipline authorities in Zhuhai in south China's Guangdong Province have ordered Zhou Shaoqiang, General Manager of Zhuhai Financial Investment Holdings Co. Ltd., to step down after he exceeded the spending limit for an expensive dinner. Zhou and 16 others attended a banquet at a local restaurant on January 4 at a cost of 37,517 yuan ($6,022), including 12 bottles of pricey red wine.