In Jilin Province, Baicheng City, Tongyu County was once a deeply impoverished county. According to official reports, in 2025, the county just shed the label of impoverished county. The then county party secretary Li Deming invested tens of millions of yuan to build 10 “star-standard” water-flushing public toilets. On May 31st, this topic became a hot search on Weibo, sparking discussions.
The Jilin Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection and Supervision announced recently that in May 2020, during Li Deming’s tenure as the party secretary of Tongyu County, he pursued personal achievements and, in a tight financial situation, unauthorizedly changed the design of a project to build public toilets in the urban area, expanding the construction area and carrying out luxurious decoration far exceeding the local economic development level. Li Deming is also facing other serious disciplinary and legal issues, undergoing disciplinary review and supervision investigation by the Jilin Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection and Supervision.
Public records show that Li Deming was born in July 1970, and previously served as the director of the Baicheng City Housing and Urban-Rural Development Bureau. In April 2019, he became the party secretary of Tongyu County, was promoted to a member of the municipal party committee in 2021, and continued to concurrently serve as the party secretary of Tongyu County. In July 2023, Li Deming was appointed as the director of the Provincial Agriculture and Rural Affairs Department until voluntarily surrendering himself in January 2025. On March 27th, he was dismissed from the position of director of the Jilin Provincial Agriculture and Rural Affairs Department.
According to reports from Jimo News, during Li Deming’s four-year tenure in Tongyu County, which was not only a deeply impoverished county in Jilin Province but also a national-level impoverished county with land desertification, alkalization, and persistent drought, known as an “800-mile drought sea”. In April 2020, the county finally “lifted the poverty cap”. In June, Li Deming invested 11.92 million yuan to build 10 luxurious water-flushing public toilets.
Local media reported that the 10 toilets varied in size from 110 to 140 square meters, decorated luxuriously with complete facilities, equipped with central air conditioning and ventilation systems, hand dryers, purified water machines, automatic fragrance sprayers, and various toiletries. They also have wifi, speakers, etc., with each toilet meeting “star standards” and having 24-hour caretaker management.
In addition, in December 2021, the Tongyu County Urban Management Comprehensive Law Enforcement Brigade invested over 1.8 million yuan to complete green landscaping planting, hardening paving, and landscape lighting construction for six water-flushing public toilets in the county’s urban area.
On May 31st, the topic of “Former county party secretary spending millions to build 10 public toilets” sparked heated discussions online.
Many netizens expressed, “Tongyu was already poor, yet they dared to do this.” “With 400,000, you could build a two-story house in the village, but with 1.8 million, a luxurious toilet?” “Luxury is just superficial, it may not actually cost much.” “This is not the only county, check others too!” “Our Nanjing Deji has a public toilet that cost 30 million yuan.” “With such limited intelligence, how did he become a county party secretary? This is the real issue to investigate.”
Some also said, “It’s been built, let’s hope they don’t demolish it and continue letting the public use it, otherwise it would be another waste of resources.”