Xi makes a political gamble by telling Chinese to clean their plates

Xi Jinping wants 1.4 billion diners to clean their plates. But the Chinese president’s campaign against food waste risks touching a third rail in a country where meals are a cornerstone of private life.

This week, Xi rolled out a new push to curb the “shocking and distressing” problem of discarded leftovers, as he seeks to fortify a fragile food supply strained by floods, epidemics, locusts and trade wars. He cited a Tang Dynasty poem imploring people to “know that each grain on your plate comes from the labor of peasants.”

The response to the “Clean Plates Campaign” has been swift, even