CHINA

Business Dealings by Officials Outlawed: China, acknowledging public fury over corruption, issued an urgent order Friday forbidding officials from doing business or playing the stock market. Promising severe punishment, it demanded that problems from collection of unreasonable fees to abuse of power be stopped by the end of the year. The directive, issued jointly by the State Council, China’s cabinet, and the Communist Party’s decision-making Central Committee, follows months of warnings by top leaders that corruption was like a virus that threatened the party’s hold on power. China’s rapid embrace of market-style economic reforms has created an atmosphere where corruption has flourished. Ordinary people complain bitterly about how the well-connected are benefiting unfairly from the reforms, a fact acknowledged by the order.