A well-reported story on scmp.com($$) about the anti-vice sweep in Dongguan puts these campaigns into perspective.
Dongguan, in China's factory belt just north of Shenzhen, is to the sex trade what Las Vegas is to gambling. Although the threat of being ranked as one of the country's most crime-ridden cities is a motivating factor for the local party honcho, we don't know why Public Security has chosen to declare war on prostitution at this time.
Yet the inevitably feeble results remind us that being seen to crack down is far more important than the actual crackdown itself.
The chain of interests between the sex industry, police, party officials and the local economy are too important to break. Some 300,000 sex workers, and another 500,000 or so indirectly employed in an industry that accounts for 20%-30% of the Dongguan service industry.
According to a brothel operator who has lived in Dongguan for 30 years, the sex industry is highly developed and run in the same way as legitimate private businesses. Recruiting is standardised, training is provided, and marketing strategies are conceived and executed.
The logical response would be to at least decriminalise the sector and establish safe working conditions, routine medical checks and all the rest.
But that would run counter to the “harmonious society” narrative and acknowledge that the party can't find employment for rural women beyond low-paid factory work.
Just as important, the security apparatus needs an illicit sex trade as a pretext for far-ranging sweeps against "unhealthy elements". If actual commercial sex were legalised, how much harder would it be to launch endless Airstrip One-style campaigns against vaguely-defined internet porn, gambling and violent games?
And without that cover, the just-as-frequent crackdowns on human rights and democracy activists will be naked.
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