Chinese Communist Party develops taste for cosmetic surgery
Chinese Communist Party officials are rushing to have cosmetic surgery as they face ever-growing media attention.
No longer content to meld into a mass of grey suits, China’s politicians increasing want to stand out from the crowd like their Western counterparts.
More than 500 government officials are now being treated each year at the Plastic Surgery Hospital at Beijing’s Union Medical College, according to Chen Huanran, a senior surgeon.
“The officials have to go on television much more than before, and have to make many more appearances in public. They want to make sure they have the strong features that government officials are supposed to have,” said Dr Chen.
He said that at least 200 operations each year are performed on senior Communist Party cadres, although he dismissed the notion that any current members of the all-powerful Politburo have been under the knife.
“The number of operations on officials has risen quickly in recent years,” he said. “Now at least 20 per cent of my patients are government officials.”
“The officials are usually between 40 and 60 years old. They simply want to look younger, but they don’t want others to notice any changes.”
For senior officials, the operations are carried out under cover of darkness. “We bring them into the clinic at night, when the hospital is shut and we have got rid of all the patients,” said Dr Chen.
No address is listed on his website, merely a consultation telephone number. He explained that high-ranking cadres preferred “solitude and remote locations” and added that the clinic was away from Beijing’s main thoroughfares and its windows discreetly frosted.
The most popular procedure is an eyelid-lift, followed by other facial reconstruction and rejuvenating enhancements such as botox, or using wrinkle-filler. Dr Chen charges 30,000 yuan (£2,700) to tighten the eyelids, but he said that more junior doctors had far lower fees.
Many government officials are now using their holidays, or time inbetween meetings or training in Beijing, to have a quick procedure. “Lots of publicity and marketing companies also give plastic surgery as gifts to government figures and the bosses of state-owned companies, as well as to their wives,” he said.
Plastic surgery is now a £1.5 billion annual industry in China, according to Xinhua, the official government news agency, and is growing at the rate of 20 per cent a year. Some experts believe that over a million procedures are now performed annually.
Beijing has hosted a Miss Plastic Surgery beauty pageant, and a growing number of university graduates are opting for minor cosmetic surgery in the hope it will win them a better job.
By Malcolm Moore January 1, 2010
