Xi Jinping wants China to have better toilets

These are hard times for many local governments in China. Slowing economic growth and a teetering property market make it hard for them to service their massive debts. Some even struggle to pay public-sector workers. But instructions from Xi Jinping, the country’s leader, are hard to ignore. In Guangyuan, a city in the south-western province of Sichuan, officials met last month to study his edicts relating to lavatories. Eradicating noxious facilities and building hygienic ones is a goal that Mr Xi heartily champions. In 2015 he called for a “toilet revolution”. Political resolve helped China to create the world’s largest high-speed rail network in a matter of years. With sanitation, however, politics can get in the way.